the spot. She'll do it too," he
added with a pathetic note of pride in his voice. "She's got nerve
enough for anything."

He drew a long breath, and Aggie poured him a third cup of tea.

"I dare say this will finish everything," he said dejectedly. "I can't
offer her any excitement like this. We live in a quiet suburb, where
nobody ever fires a revolver except on the Fourth of July."

"What she needs," Tish said, bending forward, "is a lesson, Mr.
Bell--something to make her hate the very thought of a moving picture
and shudder at the sound of a shot."

"Exactly," said Mr. Bell. "I've thought of that. Something to make her
gun-shy and camera-shy. It's curious about her. In some ways she's a
timid girl. She's afraid of thunder, for one thing."

Tish bent forward. "Do you know," she said, "the greatest weapon in the
world?"

"Weapon? Well, I don't know. These new German guns--"

"The greatest weapon in the world," Tish explained, "is ridicule. Man is
helpless against it. To be absurd is to be lost. When the bandits take
the money, where do they go?"

"Down the other side from the pass. A photographer will photograph them
there, making their escape with the loot."

"And the young lady?"

"I've told you that," he said bitterly. "She is to be captured by the
attacking party."

"They will all be armed?"

"Sure, with blanks. The Indians have guns and arrows, but the arrows
have rubber tips."

Tish rose majestically. "Mr. Bell," she said, "you may sleep to-night
the sleep of peace. When I undertake a thing, I carry it through. My
friends will agree with me. I never fail, when my heart is set on it. By
the day after to-morrow the young lady in the case will hate the sight
of a camera."

Although not disclosing her plan, she invited the young man to join us.
But his face fell and he shook his head.

Tish said that she did not expect to need him, but that, if the time
came, she would blow three times on a police whistle, which she had,
with her usual foresight, brought along. He agreed to that, although
looking rather surprised, and we parted from him.

"I would advise," Tish said as he moved away, "that you conceal yourself
in the valley below the pass on the other side."

He agreed to this, and we separated for the night. But long after Aggie
and I had composed ourselves to rest Tish sat on a stone by the
camp-fire and rolled cigarettes.

At last she came into the tent and wakened us by prodding us with h