bels, an' I was afraid there'd be blood spilled before I could get
the room dark. Bein's shore busy, I lost sight of the young fellow for
a second or so, an' when I got an eye free for him I seen a Greaser
about to knife him. Think I was some considerate of the Greaser by
only shootin' his arm off. Then I cracked the last lamp, an' in the
hullabaloo me an' Jim vamoosed.

"We made tracks for our hosses an' packs, an' was hittin' the San
Felipe road when we run right plumb into the young man. Well, he said
his name was Gale--Dick Gale. The girl was with him safe an' well; but
her sweetheart, the soldier, bein' away without leave, had to go back
sudden. There shore was some trouble, for Jim an' me heard shootin'.
Gale said he had no money, no friends, was a stranger in a desert
country; an' he was distracted to know how to help the girl. So me an'
Jim started off with them for San Felipe, got switched, and' then we
headed for the Rio Forlorn."

"Oh, I think he was perfectly splendid!" exclaimed the girl.

"Shore he was. Only, Nell, you can't lay no claim to bein' the
original discoverer of that fact."

"But, Laddy, you haven't told me what he looks like."

At this juncture Dick Gale felt it absolutely impossible for him to
play the eavesdropper any longer. Quietly he rolled out of bed. The
voices still sounded close outside, and it was only by effort that he
kept from further listening. Belding's kindly interest, Laddy's blunt
and sincere cowboy eulogy, the girl's sweet eagerness and praise--these
warmed Gale's heart. He had fallen among simple people, into whose
lives the advent of an unknown man was welcome. He found himself in a
singularly agitated mood. The excitement, the thrill, the difference
felt in himself, experienced the preceding night, had extended on into
his present. And the possibilities suggested by the conversation he
had unwittingly overheard added sufficiently to the other feelings to
put him into a peculiarly receptive state of mind. He was wild to be
one of the Belding rangers. The idea of riding a horse in the open
desert, with a dangerous duty to perform, seemed to strike him with an
appealing force. Something within him went out to the cowboys, to this
blunt and kind Belding. He was afraid to meet the girl. If every man
who came along fell in love with this sweet-voiced Nell, then what hope
had he to escape--now, when his whole inner awakening betokened a
change of spirit, hop