f Muldoon was the first step toward the thousand dollars,
and even if Aggie never got her gray alpaca again it had seen its best
days.

That morning, while Aggie and I sewed and ripped and Mr. Muldoon sat
back in the cave with the road map on his knees, Tish went to the
farmhouse. She came back at eleven o'clock with a chicken for dinner and
a flush on each cheek.

"I've fixed it, Mr. Muldoon," she said. "I talked to one of the
outlaws!"

"What?" screeched Aggie.

"He'd come in for something to eat--the red-bearded one. We had quite a
chat. I told him we were traveling like Stevenson--with a donkey; but
that one of the ladies had an abscess on a tooth and was going home. He
said it was no place for women and offered himself as an escort."

Mr. Muldoon groaned. "What am I going to do if one of them comes up and
makes an ass of himself?" he demanded. "Kiss him?"

Tish looked at him coldly.

"You'll have your jaw tied up," she said. "That will cover your chin,
and you needn't speak. Point to your jaw. Anyhow, they'll not bother
you. I said the toothache had affected your disposition, and we were
just as glad you were going. The red-haired man says he's got relatives
near the mouth of the valley and you can stay there overnight. One of
the men folks pulls teeth in emergencies."

It is hard, writing all this of Tish, to remember that she has always
been a truthful woman. As Charlie Sands said later, when we told him the
story and he had sat, open-mouthed, staring from one to the other of us,
no one knows what depths of mendacity lie behind the most virtuous
countenance.

We started "Aggie" off at two o'clock that afternoon, sitting sideways
on Modestine, jaw tied up, veiled and sun-hatted, with Aggie's
flowered-silk bag hanging to one wrist and a lunch-basket on the other
arm. Tish and I saw "her" down the hill and kissed "her" good-by.

This was Tish's idea. I thought it unnecessary, but as a matter of fact,
no matter what Charlie Sands may say, it was not a real kiss, going as
it did through a veil and a bandage.

The man with a gun watched "her" off, and Tish, having waved "her" out
of sight round a curve, looked up at him and nodded. Far away as he was,
he saw that and swept his hat off with quite an air.

* * * * *

Tish's plan was very simple. She told us as we cleared up the cave after
the day's excitement.

"When I go for the evening milk," she said, "I shall mention t