know about you. We'll have it for a secret
for a month or two."

She put her little hand on his arm appealingly to win his consent. His
eyes rested on it curiously, Then he took it in his big brown one and
turned it palm up. Its delicacy and perfect finish moved him, for it
seemed to him that in the contrast between the two hands he saw in
miniature the difference of sex. His showed strength and competency and
the roughness that comes of the struggle of life. But hers was strangely
tender and confiding, compact of the qualities that go to make up the
strength of the weak. Surely he deserved the worst if he was not good to
her, a shield and buckler against the storms that must beat against them
in the great adventure they were soon to begin together.

Reverently he raised the little hand and kissed its palm.

"Sure, sweetheart I had forgotten about your mother's claim. We can
wait, I reckon," he added with a smile. "You must always set me straight
when I lose the trail of what's right, Curly Haid. You are to be a
guiding-star to me."

"And you to me. Oh, Bucky, isn't it good?"

He kissed her again hurriedly, for the train was jarring to a halt.
Before he could answer in words, O'Halloran burst into the coach, at the
head of his little company.

"All serene, Bucky. This is the last scene, and the show went without a
hitch in the performance anywhere."

Bucky smiled at Frances as he answered his enthusiastic friend:

"That's right. Not a hitch anywhere."

"And say, Bucky, who do you think is in the other coach dressed as one
of the guards?"

"Colonel Roosevelt," the ranger guessed promptly.

"Our friend Chaves. He's escaping because he thinks we'll have him
assassinated in revenge," the big Irishman returned gleefully. "You
should have seen his color, me bye, when he caught sight of me. I asked
him if he'd been reduced to the ranks, and he begged me not to tell you
he was here. Go in and devil him."

Bucky glanced at his lover. "No, I'm so plumb contented I haven't the
heart."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the Rocking Chair Ranch there was bustle and excitement. Mexicans
scrubbed and scoured under the direction of Alice and Mrs. Mackenzie,
and vaqueros rode hither and thither on bootless errands devised by
their nervous master. For late that morning a telephone call from
Aravaipa had brought Webb to the receiver to listen to a telegram. The
message was from Bucky, then on