descent
grew less steep; the firs thinned out; the gray gloom brightened.

When Madeline rode out of the firs the sun had arisen and the foothills
rolled beneath her; and at their edge, where the gray of valley began,
she saw a dark patch that she knew was the ranch-house.

XX. The Sheriff of El Cajon

About the middle of the forenoon of that day Madeline reached the ranch.
Her guests had all arrived there late the night before, and wanted only
her presence and the assurance of her well-being to consider the last of
the camping trip a rare adventure. Likewise, they voted it the cowboys'
masterpiece of a trick. Madeline's delay, they averred, had been only
a clever coup to give a final effect. She did not correct their
impression, nor think it needful to state that she had been escorted
home by only one cowboy.

Her guests reported an arduous ride down the mountain, with only one
incident to lend excitement. On the descent they had fallen in with
Sheriff Hawe and several of his deputies, who were considerably under
the influence of drink and very greatly enraged by the escape of the
Mexican girl Bonita. Hawe had used insulting language to the ladies
and, according to Ambrose, would have inconvenienced the party on some
pretext or other if he had not been sharply silenced by the cowboys.

Madeline's guests were two days in recovering from the hard ride. On the
third day they leisurely began to prepare for departure. This period was
doubly trying for Madeline. She had her own physical need of rest, and,
moreover, had to face a mental conflict that could scarcely be postponed
further. Her sister and friends were kindly and earnestly persistent in
their entreaties that she go back East with them. She desired to go.
It was not going that mattered; it was how and when and under what
circumstances she was to return that roused in her disturbing emotion.
Before she went East she wanted to have fixed in mind her future
relation to the ranch and the West. When the crucial hour arrived she
found that the West had not claimed her yet. These old friends had
warmed cold ties.

It turned out, however, that there need be no hurry about making the
decision. Madeline would have welcomed any excuse to procrastinate;
but, as it happened, a letter from Alfred made her departure out of the
question for the present. He wrote that his trip to California had been
very profitable, that he had a proposition for Madeline from a large
c