ct to be
eating chocolates soon."

Her gay audacity always pleased him. He settled himself for explanations
soberly, but back of his gravity lay laughter.

"You've got the wrong hunch on me. I ain't any uneducated sheepherder.
Don't run away with that notion. Me, I went through the first year of
the High School at Tucson. I know all about _amo, amas, amat_, and how
to make a flying tackle. Course oncet in a while I slip up in grammar.
There's heap too much grammar in the world, anyhow. It plumb chokes up a
man's language."

"All right, Steve. Show me. I'm from Joplin, Missouri. When are you
going to do all this proving?"

"We won't set a date. Some time before I leave."

Yeager walked from the studio to his rooming-place. Ruth Seymour met him
on the porch and stopped him. It was the first time he had seen her
since their return.

"Is it true--what Mr. Manderson says--that you are going back to Noche
Buena?" she flung at him.

"I'm certainly getting on the society page," he laughed. "Manderson has
a pretty good reputation. I shouldn't wonder if what he says is true."

The face beneath the crown of soft black hair was colorless except for
the trembling lips.

"Why? Why must you go? You've just escaped from there with your life.
Are you mad?"

"Look here, Miss Ruth. I've just had a roundup with Miss Ellington about
this. I'm going to take a whirl at rescuing our friends. Pasquale can't
put over such a raw deal without getting a run for his money from me.
I'm going back there because it's up to me to go. There are some things
a man can't do. He can't quit when his friends need him."

She was standing in the doorway, her head leaning against the jamb so
that the fine curve of the throat line showed a beating pulse. Something
in the pose of the slim, graceful figure told him of repressed emotion.

"That is absurd, Mr. Yeager. You can't do anything for them if you go."

"Everybody sizes me up for a buzzard-head," he complained whimsically.

The gravity did not lift from her young, quick eyes.

"If you go they'll kill you," she said in a voice as dry as a whisper.

"Sho! Nothing to that. I'm going down disguised. I'll be safe enough."

"I suppose ... nothing can keep you from going." A sob choked up in her
throat as she spoke.

"No. I've got to go."

"You think you have a right to play at dice with your life! Don't your
friends count with you at all?"

"It's because they do that I'm going," he answered