Yuh better drive me home."

* * * * *

The road to Willow Springs lay straight across the mesa. Here and
there, in the yellow expanse of sand, were patches of green mesquit,
where some underground flow came near enough to the surface to slake
their thirsty roots. Elsewhere the sand shifted noiselessly across the
plain, under the touch of the wind, which fashioned innumerable oddly
shaped hummocks, and then gently purred them away again, to heap on
others.

After they had driven silently for some time, the woman spoke:
"There's a man standing in that clump of cat's-claw ahead. Did yuh see
him?"

Cassidy thoughtfully eased up the perspiring team. "I know him," he
answered, although apparently he had not raised his eyes above the
dash-board for a long time. "Name is Tommy."

"Well, what's Tommy hidin' in those bushes for?" demanded the woman.

"A feller broke into Number One Commissary last night."

"Did Tommy do it?"

"No, ma'am--not this time. His partner done it and skipped out."

"Does Jake think Tommy did it?"

"Yes, ma'am. I see Jake hitchin' up tuh go after him when we started
out."

There was little said after that until they came abreast of the
cat's-claw near the road. Cassidy pulled up.

"Say, Tommy! Oh, yuh Tommy!" he called persuasively at the silent
bushes. "Come, git in here. This lady wants yuh."

"I guess Jake's a-comin'," replied Tommy, poking his head into view
from his thorny retreat.

"I guess he is," said Cassidy, and looked over his shoulder at a
rapidly approaching pillar of dust. "It's a good thing the county pays
for his horse-flesh." There was a pause. "I reckon you'd better hurry
some, Tommy," drawled Cassidy.

"Don't stand there imperiling your life, tryin' tuh guess who I am,"
said the widow abruptly. "Get right in here and cover up with alfalfa
and them horse-blankets, and lie quiet. I want yuh."

"What for?" queried Tommy, as he clambered in, being a young man of
devious thought.

"For a witness!" said Sarah Gentry unfathomably--for Tommy.

Cassidy looked puzzled for a moment. Then a slow wave of red crept
over his face and crimsoned his ears. He started his horses again to
cover his confusion.

The woman let him think for a moment; then her eyes drew his own
startled orbs around and enveloped them in a soft light.

"Yuh know what I mean, Mister Cassidy?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well--shall we?" shyly.

"Yes, ma'am," answered Cassidy,