the pinched line at his
nostrils' base, and the tears came miserably under her lids, she laid
her head on the cloth mat that covered the wide window ledge and wept
like any child for a time. Then she wiped her face with her hands,
sighed, and fell again to thinking.

An hour later as she rose to make ready for bed, she thought she
caught a faint sound out where the little rock-bordered paths ran in
what she was pleased to call her garden, since a few hardy flowers
grew by the spring's trickle, and she held her breath to listen. It
was nothing, however, she thought, and turned into the deep room.

Only the tree-toads, long since silent, knew that a cigarette,
carefully shielded in a palm, glowed in the darkness.

Two days after this a visitor came to Last's. From far down they saw
him coming, in the mid-morning while the work of the house went
forward. Paula, bringing a pan of milk from the springhouse spied him
first and stopped to satisfy her young eyes with the unwonted
appearance of him. She looked long, and hurried in to tell her
mistress.

"Senorita," she said excitedly, "see who comes! A stranger who has
different clothes from any other. He rides not like Lost Valley men,
either, being too stiff and straight. Come, see."

And Tharon, busy about the kitchen in her starched print dress,
dropped everything at once to run with Paula to the western door of
the living room that they might look south.

"_Muchachas_ both," complained old Anita, "the milk is spilled and the
_pan dulce_ burns in the oven! Tch, tch!"

But the young creatures in the west door cared naught for her
grumbling.

"Who can it be, to come so, Senorita?" wondered Paula, her brown cheek
beside her mistress, "is he not handsome!"

"For mercy sake, Paula," chided Tharon laughing, "I believe you'd look
for beauty in th' ol' Nick himself if he rode up. But I've seen this
man before."

"Where? When?"

"In town that day I met Courtrey an' Service. I remember seen' him
come into line as I backed out--he was standin' between th' racks an'
th' porch, somewhere." And she narrowed her eyes and studied the rider
as he came jogging up across the range.

"H'm," she said presently, "he does ride funny. I bet he ain't rode
range much in _his_ life. Stiff as a ramrod, an' no mistake."

Then with an unconscious grace and poise that set well upon her as the
mistress of Last's, Tharon moved into the open door and waited.

As the stranger came closer bo