which the Ostermaiers had
come. They were, according to the young man, to take the girl with them,
with the idea of holding her for ransom. She was to escape, however,
while they were lunching in some secluded fastness, and, riding back to
the pass, was to meet there a rescue party, which the Ostermaiers were
to meet on the way down to Gunsight Chalet.

Tish's idea was this: We would ride up while they were lunching, pretend
to think them real bandits, paying no attention to them if they fired at
us, as we knew they had only blank cartridges, and, having taken them
prisoners, make them walk in ignominy to the nearest camp, some miles
farther.

"Then," said Tish, "either they will confess the ruse, and the country
will ring with laughter, or they will have to submit to arrest and much
unpleasantness. It will be a severe lesson."

We reached the pass safely, and on the way down the other side we passed
Mr. Oliver, the moving-picture man, with his outfit on a horse. He
touched his hat politely and moved out on a ledge to let us by.

"Mind if I take you as you go down the mountain?" he called. "It's a
bully place for a picture." He stared at Aggie, who was muffled in a
cape and had the dish towel round her head. "I'd particularly like to
get your Arab," he said. "The Far East and the Far West, you know."

Aggie gave him a furious glance. "Arab nothing!" she snapped. "If you
can't tell a Christian lady from a heathen, on account of her having
lost her hat, then you belong in the dirty work you're doing."

"Aggie, be quiet!" Tish said in an awful voice.

But wrath had made Aggie reckless. "'Dirty work' was what I said," she
repeated, staring at the young man.

"I beg your pardon. I'm sure I--"

"Don't think," Aggie went on, to Tish's fury, "that we don't know a few
things. We do."

"I see," he said slowly. "All right. Although I'd like to know--"

"Good-morning," said Aggie, and kicked her horse to go on.

I shall never forget Tish's face. Round the next bend she got off her
horse and confronted Aggie.

[Illustration: "The older I get, Aggie Pilkington, the more I realize
that to take you anywhere means ruin."]

"The older I get, Aggie Pilkington," she said, "the more I realize that
to take you anywhere means ruin. We are done now. All our labor is for
nothing. There will be no holdup, no nothing. They are scared off."

But Aggie was still angry. "Just let some one take you for a lousy
Bedouin, Tish," she s