ome of his visitations.

For I've been most emphatic to Whinstane Sandy in the matter of his
delightful little lynch-law program. There shall be no tarring and
feathering of women by any man in my employ. That may have been
possible in the Klondike in the days of the gold-rush, but it's not
possible in this country and this day of grace--except in the movies.
And life is not so simple that you can ride its problems away on the
cap-rail from a corral. It's unfortunate that that absurd old
sour-dough, for all his good intentions, ever got in touch with Lady
Alicia. I have, in fact, strictly forbidden him to repeat his visit to
Casa Grande, under any circumstances.

But a number of things combine to persuade me that he's not being as
passive as he pretends. He's even sufficiently forgotten his earlier
hostility toward Peter to engage in long and guarded conversation with
that gentleman, as the two of them made a pretense of bolting the new
anchor-timbers to the heel of the windmill tower. So at supper
to-night I summoned up sufficient courage to ask Peter what he knew
about the situation.

He replied that he knew more than he wanted to, and more than he
relished. That reply proving eminently unsatisfactory, I further
inquired what he thought of Lady Alicia. He somewhat startled and
shocked me by retorting that according to his own personal way of
thinking she ought to be spanked until she glowed.

I was disappointed in Peter about this. I had always thought of him as
on a higher plane than poor old Whinnie. But he was equally atavistic,
once prejudice had taken possession of him, for what he suggested must
be regarded as not one whit more refined than tar and feathers. As for
myself, I'd like to choke her, only I haven't the moral courage to
admit it to anybody.

_Thursday the First_

Lady Alicia has announced, I learn through a Struthers quite pop-eyed
with indignation, that it's Peter and I who possibly ought to be
tarred and feathered, if our puritanical community is deciding to go
in for that sort of thing! It is to laugh.

Her ladyship, I also learn, has purchased about all the small-arms
ammunition in Buckhorn and toted the same back to Casa Grande in her
car. There, in unobstructed view of the passers-by, she has set up a
target, on which, by the hour together, she coolly and patiently
practises sharpshooting with both rifle and revolver.

I admire that woman's spunk. And w