ng and taking it gently from
her. "Give it to me, and it shall be a flag of truce with which I shall
win my way through unscathed."

She started to her feet then, and her anger was worth facing for the glow
it brought to eyes and cheeks, and the tremble that came to her lips.

"Mr. Carleton, you are perfectly detestable!" she cried.

"Miss King, you are perfectly adorable!" I returned, folding the sketch
very carefully, so that it would slip easily into my pocket. "With so
authentic a map of the enemy's stronghold, what need I fear? I go--but,
on my honor, I shall shortly return."

She stood with her fingers clasped tightly in front of her, and watched me
lead Shylock down that butte--on the side toward the pass, if you are
still in doubt of my intentions. When I say she watched me, I am making a
guess; but I felt that she was, and it would be hard to disabuse my mind
of that belief. And when I started, her fingers had been clinging tightly
together. At the bottom I turned and waved my hat--and I know she saw
that, for she immediately whirled and took to studying the southern
sky-line. So I left her and galloped straight into the lion's den--to use
an old simile.

I passed through the gate and up to the house, Shylock pacing easily along
as though we both felt assured of a welcome. Old King met me at his door
as I was going by; I pulled up and gave him my very cheeriest good
morning. He looked at me from under shaggy, gray eyebrows.

"You've got your gall, young man, to come this way twice in twenty-four
hours," he said grimly.

"You can turn around and go back the way you came in."

"You asked me to call," I reminded him mildly. "You were not at home
yesterday, so I came again."

He glanced uneasily over his shoulder, and drew the door shut between
himself and whoever was within. "You damn' cur," he growled, "yuh know yuh
ain't no friend uh the Kings."

"I know you're all mighty unneighborly," I said, making me a cigarette in
the way that cowboys do. "I asked a young lady--your daughter,
I suppose--for a drink of water. She told me to go to the creek."

He laughed at that; evidently he approved of his daughter's attitude.
"Beryl knows how to deal with the likes uh you," he muttered relishfully.
"And she hates the Carletons bad as I do. Get off my place, young man, and
do it quick!"

"Sure!" I assented cheerfully, and jabbed the spurs into Shylock--taking
good care that he was beaded north instead of south