d to feel Lite's elbow touching hers,
and to know that although Lite's hand rested idly on his knee, it was
only one second from his weapon. She had no definite suspicion of Art
Osgood, but all the same she was thankful that she was not there alone
with him among all these dark, sharp-eyed Mexicans with their
atmosphere of latent treachery.

Lite ate mostly with his left hand. Jean noticed that. It was the
only sign of watchfulness that he betrayed, unless one added the fact
that he had chosen a seat which brought his back against an adobe wall
and his face toward Art and the room, with Jean beside him. That might
have been pure chance, and it might not. But Art was evidently playing
fair.

A little later they came back to the Casa del Sonora, and Jean went up
to her room feeling that a great burden had been lifted from her
shoulders. Lite and Art Osgood were out on the veranda, gossiping of
the range, and in Art's pocket was a month's leave of absence from his
duties. Once she heard Lite laugh, and she stood with one hand full of
hairpins and the other holding the brush and listened, and smiled a
little. It all sounded very companionable, very care-free,--not in the
least as though they were about to clear up an old wrong.

She got into bed and thumped the hard pillow into a little nest for her
tired head, and listened languidly to the familiar voices that came to
her mingled with confused noises of the street. Lite was on guard; he
would not lose his caution just because Art seemed friendly and
helpfully inclined, and had meant no treachery over in that queer
restaurant. Lite would not be easily tricked. So she presently fell
asleep.

CHAPTER XXIII

A LITTLE ENLIGHTENMENT

Sometime in the night Jean awoke to hear footsteps in the corridor
outside her room. She sat up with a start, and her right hand went
groping for her gun. Just for the moment she thought that she was in
her room at the Lazy A, and that the night-prowler had come and was
beginning his stealthy search of the house.

Then she heard some one down in the street call out a swift sentence in
Spanish, and get a laugh for an answer. She remembered that she was in
Nogales, within talking distance of Mexico, and that she had found Art
Osgood, and that he did not behave like a fugitive murderer, but like a
friend who was anxious to help free her father.

The footsteps went on down the hall,--the footsteps of Lite, who had
come and s