"I wonder if you can help me put on a tire?"

The lank little host regarded him quietly, then looked at the women and
drew his hand across his mouth.

"Wal, I dunno," he answered. "I've set a tire and I've set a hen, but I
wouldn't like to tell ye what was hatched."

The girl in the tonneau laughed in frank delight--a musical outburst that
flattered the station host tremendously. The man at the wheel was
already alighting.

"You'll do," he said. "My name is Bostwick. I'm on my way to Goldite,
in a hurry. It won't take us long, but it wants two men on the job."

He had a way of thrusting his disagreeable tasks upon his fellow beings
before they were prepared either to accept or refuse a proposition. He
succeeded here so promptly that the girl in the car made no effort to
restrain her amusement. She was radiantly smiling as she leaned above
the wheel where the two men were presently at work.

In the midst of the toil a sound of whistling came upon the air. The
girl in the auto looked up, alertly. It was the Toreador's song from
Carmen that she heard, riotously rendered. A moment later the whistler
appeared--and an exclamation all but escaped the girl's red, parted lips.

Mounted on a calico pony of strikingly irregular design, a horseman had
halted at the bend of a trail that led to the rear of the station. He
saw the girl and his whistling ceased.

From his looks he might have been a bandit or a prince. He was a roughly
dressed, fearless-looking man of the hills, youthful, tall, and as
carelessly graceful in the saddle as a fish in its natural clement.

The girl's brown eyes and his blue eyes met. She did not analyze the
perfect symmetry or balance of his features; she only knew his hair and
long moustache were tawny, that his face was bronzed, that his eyes were
bold, frank depths of good humor and fire. He was splendid to look
at--that she instantly conceded. And she looked at him steadily till a
warm flush rose to the pink of her ears, when her glance fell, abashed,
to the pistol that hung on his saddle, and so, by way of the hoofs of his
pinto steed, to the wheel, straight down where she was leaning.

The station-keeper glanced up briefly.

"Hullo, Van," was all he said.

The horseman made no reply. He was still engaged in looking at the girl
when Bostwick half rose, with a tool in hand, and scowled at him silently.

It was only a short exchange of glances that passed between the pair