s and to draw back from them, shuddering somewhat
pleasurably. Now that he was again in San Juan and that her eyes had
been held by his in the first meeting upon the street, her heart
fluttered, her vision clouded, she wondered what she would do.

There was to be no lost action in Galloway's campaign now. Within half
a dozen hours of his arrival there was a gathering of various of his
henchmen at the Casa Blanca. Just what passed was not to be known; it
was significant, however, that among those who had come to his call
were the Mexican, del Rio, Antone, Kid Rickard, and a handful of the
other most restless spirits of the county. Norton accepted the act in
all that it implied to his suspicions and sent out word to Cutter,
Brocky Lane, and those of his own and Brocky's cowboys whom he counted
on.

Galloway's second step, known only to himself and Florrie, was a
private meeting with the banker's daughter. It occurred upon the
second evening following his return, just after dark among the
cottonwoods, but a hundred yards from her home. He had made the
opportunity with the despatch which marked him now; he had watched for
her during the day, had appeared merely to pass her by chance on the
street, and had paused just long enough to ask her to meet him.

"I have done all that I planned to do," he announced triumphantly, his
eyes holding hers, forcing upon her spirit the mastery of his own.
"The power in Mexico is going to be Francisco Villa. I have seen him.
Let me talk with you to-night, Florence. History is in the making; it
may be you and I together who shape the destiny of a people."

After all, she was but a little over sixteen, her head filled with the
bright stuff of romance, and he was a forceful man who for his own
purposes had long studied her. She came to the tryst, albeit half in
trembling, a dozen tremulous times ready for a fleeing retreat.

Again he was all deference to her. He builded cunningly upon the fact
that he trusted her; that he, a strong man, put his faith in her, a
woman. He flattered her as she had never been flattered, not too
subtly, yet not so broadly as to arouse her suspicion of his intent.
He spoke quietly at first, then his voice seeming charged with his
leaping ambition set responsive chords within her thrilling. He
pictured to her the state he was going to found, organize, rule, an
uncertain number of fair miles stretching along a tropical coast; he
made her see again a pa