e obeyed. The passes through the mountains were in her hands.
The sunlight fell warm and golden about him; the full morning was
serene; a stillness as of ineffable peace lay across the solitudes.
And yet he felt that the placid promise was a lie; that the laughing
loveliness of the day was but a mask covering much strife. In the full
light he moved on not unlike a man groping in absolute darkness,
uncertain of the path he trod, suspicious of pitfalls, knowing only
that his direction was in hands other than his own. Hands that looked
soft and that were relentless; hands that blazed with barbaric jewels.
There had been a knot in a rawhide string, and a bandit in the
mountains had lifted his hat and had said simply: "Long live _La
Senorita_!"

CHAPTER IX

WHICH BEGINS WITH A LITTLE SONG AND ENDS WITH TROUBLE BETWEEN FRIENDS

Speculation at this stage was profitless and the day was perfect.
Kendric told himself critically that he was growing fanciful; he had
been cooped up too much. First on board the schooner _New Moon_, then
in four walls of a house. What he needed was day after day, stood on
end, like this. If he didn't look out he'd be growing nerves next. He
grinned widely at the remote possibility, pushed his hat far back and
rode on. And by the time his horse had carried him to the far edge of
the level land and to the first slope of the downward pitch, he was
singing contentedly to himself and his horse and all the world that
cared to listen.

Far below, far ahead, he caught his first glimpse of the ranch houses
marking the Bruce West holdings. From the heights his eye ran down
into valley lands that stretched wide and far away, rolling, grassy,
with occasional clumps of trees where there were water holes. A valley
by no means so prodigally watered as Zoraida's, but none the less an
estate to put a sparkle into a man's eyes. It was large, it was
sufficiently level and fertile; above aught else it was remote. It
gave the impression of a great, calm aloofness from the outside world
of traffic and congestion; it lay, mile after mile, sufficient unto
itself, a place for a lover of the outdoors to make his home. No
wonder that young West had gone wild over it. Hills and mountains shut
it in, rising to the sky lines like walls actually sustaining the blue
cloudless void. As Jim Kendric rode on and down his old song, his own
song, found its way to his lips.

"Where skies are blue
And the e