nd cowboys in the
streets, and vistas such as she had dreamed of shimmering in the
afternoon sun, awakened an erstwhile slumbering desire for a draught of
the real Romance of the West, heretofore only enjoyed in unsatisfying
sips as she read of the West and its wonder trails.

A noise in the street attracted her attention. She stepped to the
window. Just across the street a tall, heavy man was unlocking a door in
a little adobe building. Near him stood the young cowboy whom she had
not expected to see again. And there was the tramp, handcuffed and
strangely white of face. The door swung open, and the tall man stepped
back. The tramp shuffled through the low doorway, and the door was
closed and locked. The cowboy and the tall man talked for a while. She
stepped back as the men separated.

Presently she heard the cowboy's voice downstairs. She flushed, and
gazed at herself in the glass.

"I am going to make him sorry he refused to let that man go," she told
the mirror. "Oh, I shall be nice to him! So nice that--" She did not
complete the thought. She was naturally gracious. When she set out to be
exceptionally nice--"Oo, la, la!" she exclaimed. "And he's nothing but a
cowboy!"

She heard Lorry clump upstairs and enter a room across the hall. She
knew it was he. She could hear the clink of his spurs and the swish of
his chaps. While she realized that he was Mrs. Adams's son and had a
right to be there, she rather resented his proximity, possibly because
she had not expected to see him again.

She had no idea that he had been discharged by his foreman, nor that he
had earned the disapproval of his mother for having quarreled. Of course
he had ridden to Stacey to bring the prisoner in, but he knew they were
in Stacey, and Alice Weston liked to believe that he would make excuse
to stay in town while they were there. It would be fun--for her.

After supper that evening Mrs. Weston and Alice were introduced to
Waring, who came in late. Waring chatted with Mrs. Weston out on the
veranda in the cool of the evening. Alice was surprised that her mother
seemed interested in Waring. But after a while, as the girl listened,
she admitted that the man was interesting.

The conversation drifted to mines and mining. Mrs. Weston declared that
she had never seen a gold mine, but that her husband owned some stock
in one of the richest mines in Old Mexico. Waring grew enthusiastic as
he described mine operating in detail, touching the