creature of ardent flame and passion which her blood and her
life in the open had made her, she was not devoid of the understanding
of the limit of physical endurance. Last night, through the late
moonlight and later starlight, through the thick darkness which lay
across the mountain trails before the coming of day, on into the dawn,
she had ridden the forty miles from the railroad at Rocky Bend.
Certain of treachery on the part of Bayne Trevors, she had arrived only
to find him plotting another blow at her interests. She had ridden a
mad brute of a horse whose rebellious struggle against her authority
had taxed her to the last ounce of her strength. She had shot a man in
the right shoulder and the left forearm. . . . And now, with no one to
see her, she was pale and shaking a little, suddenly faint from the
heavy beating of her own heart. She had had virtually no sleep last
night. She was glad of it. For now she would sleep, sleep.

"I am not to be called, no matter what happens," she said to Jose who
came trotting to the tinkle of her bell. "Thank you for the roses,
Jose."

Slipping out of her clothes, she drew the sheet up to her throat--and
tossed for a wretched hour before sleep came to her. A restless sleep,
filled with broken bits of unpleasant dreams.

At two o'clock, swiftly dressing after a leisurely bath, she went out
into the courtyard, where she found Jose making a pretense of
gardening, whereas in truth for a matter of hours he had done little
but watch for her coming.

"Jose," she said, as he swept off his wide hat and made her the bow
reserved for _la senorita_ and _la senorita_ alone, "you will have to
be lady's maid and errand-boy for me until I get things running right.
I am going to telephone into town this minute for a woman to do my
cooking and housekeeping and be a nuisance around generally. While I
do that, will you scare up something for me to eat and then saddle a
horse for me? And don't make a fire, either; just something cold out
of a can, you know."

She went to the office, arranged over the wire with Mrs. Simpson of
Rocky Bend to come out on the following day, and then spent fifteen
minutes studying the pay-roll taken from the safe, which, fortunately,
Trevors had left open. As Jose came in with a big tray she was running
through a file of reports made at the month-end, two weeks ago, by
certain of the ranch foremen.

"Put it down on the table, Jose. Thank you," and she