id leave the ranch early the next morning, driving a pair of blacks
harnessed to the buckboard. Buck and Jessup were both surprised at this
unwonted method of locomotion, which usually indicated a passenger to be
brought back, or, more rarely, a piece of freight or express, too large or
heavy to be carried on horseback, yet not bulky enough for the lumbering
freight-wagon.

"An' if it was freight, he'd have sent one of us," commented Bud, as they
saddled up preparatory to resuming operations on the fences. "Still an'
all, I reckon he wants to see Pop himself and get a line on what that old
he-gossip knows. He'll have his ear full, all right," he finished in a
tone of vindictive satisfaction.

To make up for the day before, the whole gang took life very easily, and
knocked off work rather earlier than usual. They had loafed ten or fifteen
minutes in the bunk-house and were straggling up the slope in answer to
Pedro's summons to dinner when, with a clatter of hoofs, the blacks
whirled through the further gate and galloped toward the house.

Buck, among the others, glanced curiously in that direction and observed
with much interest that a woman occupied the front seat of the buckboard
with Tex, while a young man and two small trunks more than filled the
rear.

"Some dame!" he heard Bud mutter under his breath.

A moment later Lynch pulled up the snorting team and called Jessup to hold
them. Buck was just turning away from a lightning appraisal of the
new-comers, when, to his amazement, the young woman smiled at him from her
seat.

"Why, Mr. Green!" she called out in surprise. "To think of finding you
here!"

Buck stared at her, wide-eyed and bewildered. With her crisp, dark hair,
fresh color, and regular features, she was very good to look at. But he
had never consciously set eyes on her before in all his life!

CHAPTER XIV

THE LADY FROM THE PAST

Stratton's first feeling was that the girl must have made a mistake. In a
dazed fashion he stepped forward and helped her out of the buckboard, but
this was a more or less mechanical action and because she so evidently
expected it. As he took her hand she pressed it warmly and did not at once
relinquish it after she had reached the ground.

"I'm awfully glad to see you again," she said, her color heightened a
little. "But how on earth do you come to be away off here?"

With an effort Buck pulled himself together. He could see that the men
were regarding hi