ldn't marry me."

She nodded and laughed.

"You would have your will," she confessed. "But I couldn't be a party
to such madness. All that money was yours, not mine. But I was loving
you all the time, Elam, for the great big boy you are, breaking the
thirty-million toy with which you had grown tired of playing. And when
I said no, I knew all the time it was yes. And I am sure that my eyes
were golden all the time. I had only one fear, and that was that you
would fail to lose everything. Because, dear, I knew I should marry
you anyway, and I did so want just you and the ranch and Bob and Wolf
and those horse-hair bridles. Shall I tell you a secret? As soon as
you left, I telephoned the man to whom I sold Mab."

She hid her face against his breast for an instant, and then looked at
him again, gladly radiant.

"You see, Elam, in spite of what my lips said, my mind was made up
then. I--I simply had to marry you. But I was praying you would
succeed in losing everything. And so I tried to find what had become
of Mab. But the man had sold her and did not know what had become of
her. You see, I wanted to ride with you over the Glen Ellen hills, on
Mab and you on Bob, just as I had ridden with you through the Piedmont
hills."

The disclosure of Mab's whereabouts trembled on Daylight's lips, but he
forbore.

"I'll promise you a mare that you'll like just as much as Mab," he said.

But Dede shook her head, and on that one point refused to be comforted.

"Now, I've got an idea," Daylight said, hastening to get the
conversation on less perilous ground. "We're running away from cities,
and you have no kith nor kin, so it don't seem exactly right that we
should start off by getting married in a city. So here's the idea:
I'll run up to the ranch and get things in shape around the house and
give the caretaker his walking-papers. You follow me in a couple of
days, coming on the morning train. I'll have the preacher fixed and
waiting. And here's another idea. You bring your riding togs in a suit
case. And as soon as the ceremony's over, you can go to the hotel and
change. Then out you come, and you find me waiting with a couple of
horses, and we'll ride over the landscape so as you can see the
prettiest parts of the ranch the first thing. And she's sure pretty,
that ranch. And now that it's settled, I'll be waiting for you at the
morning train day after to-morrow."

Dede blushed as she spoke.

"You are