But when Louise came blithely leading the two saddle-ponies, Black Boyar and the big pinto Rally, Walter Stone shook an odd twenty years from his broad shoulders and swung into the saddle briskly.

From the shade of the great sycamore warders of the wide gate, he waved a gauntleted salute to Aunt Eleanor, who stood on the porch, drawing a leaf of the graceful moon-vine through her slender fingers. She nodded a smiling farewell.

Louise and her uncle rode as two lovers, their ponies close together.

The girl swayed to Boyar's quick, swinging walk. Walter Stone sat the strong, tireless Rally with solid ease.

The girl, laughing happily at her triumph, leaned toward her escort teasingly, singing fragments of old Spanish love-songs, or talking with eager lips and sparkling eyes. Of a sudden she would a.s.sume a demureness, utterly bewitching in its veiled and perfect mimicry. Quite seriously he would set about to overcome this delightful mood of hers with extravagant vows of lifelong love and servitude, as though he were in truth her chosen caballero and she his Senorita of the Rose.

And as they played at love-making, hidden graces of the girl's sweet nature unfolded to him, and deep in his heart he wondered, and found life good, and Youth still unspoiled by the years, and Louise a veritable enchantress of infinite moods, each one adorable.

Golden-haired, gray-eyed, quick with sympathy, sweetly subtle and subtly sweet was Louise.... And one must worship Youth and Beauty and Love, even with their pa.s.sing bitter on one's lips.

But to Walter Stone no such bitterness had come, this soldierly, wise caballero escorting his adorable senorita on an errand of mercy. His was the heart of Youth, eternal and undaunted Youth. And Beauty was hers, of the spirit as well as of the flesh. And Love....

"Why, Louise! There are tears on your lashes, my colleen!"

"But I am singing, uncle." And she smiled through her tears.

"Sweetheart?"

"Yes, Uncle Walter?"

"What is it? Tell me."

"I wish I could. I don't know. I think I'm getting to be grown up--just like a woman. It--it makes me--think of lots of things. Let's ride." And her silver spurs flashed.

Boyar, taken quite by surprise, grunted as he leaped down the Moonstone Trail. He resented this undeserved punishment by plunging sideways across the road. Again came the flash of the silver spurs, and Walter Stone heard Louise disciplining the pony.

"Just a woman. Just like a woman," murmured the rancher. "Now, Boyar, and some others of us, will never quite understand what that means." And with rein and voice he lifted the pinto Rally to a lope.

CHAPTER VII

THE GIRL WHO GLANCED BACK

At the crossroads in the valley stood the local jail, or "coop," as it was more descriptively called. Unpainted, isolated, its solitary ugliness lacked even the squalid dignity commonly a.s.sociated with the word "jail." The sun pelted down upon its bleached, unshaded roof and sides. The burning air ran over its warped shingles like a kind of colorless fire.

The boy Collie, half-dreaming in the suffocating heat of the place, started to his feet as the door swung open. He had heard horses coming.

They had stopped. He could hardly realize that the sunlight was swimming through the close dusk of the place. But the girl of Moonstone Canon, reining Boyar round, was real, and she smiled and nodded a greeting.

"This is Mr. Stone, my uncle," she said. "He wants to talk with you."

With a glance that noted each unlovely detail of the place, the broken iron bed, the cracked pitcher, and the unspeakable blankets, Louise touched her pony and was gone.

Collie rubbed his eyes, blinking in the sun as he stood gazing after her.

Walter Stone, standing near the doorway, noted the lad's clear, healthy skin, his well-shaped head with its tumble of wavy black hair, and the luminous dark eyes. He felt an instant sympathy for the boy, a sympathy that he masked with a business-like brusqueness. "Well, young man?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come outside. It's vile in there."

Stone led his pony to the north side of the "coop."

Collie followed.

Away to the west he saw the hazy peaks. A lake of burning air pulsed above the flat, hot floor of the valley. Over there lay the hills and the shade and the road.... Somewhere beyond was Overland, his friend, penniless, hunted, hungry....

"She brung you?" queried the boy.

"Yes. I have seen Tenlow, the sheriff. He is willing to let you go at my request. What do you intend doing, now that you are free?"

"I don' know. Find Red, I guess."

Walter Stone nodded. "What then?"

"Oh, stick it out with Red. They'll be after him sure now. Red's my pal."

"What has he done to get the police after him?"

"Nothin'. It's the bunch."

"The bunch?"

"Uhuh. Them guys out on the Mojave. But say, are you workin' me to get next to Red and get him pinched again?"

"No. You don't have to answer me. This man Red is nothing to me, one way or the other. He took Miss Lacharme's pony, but she has overlooked that.

I thought, perhaps, you might care to explain your position. Perhaps you had rather not. You may go now if you wish."

"Is that straight?"

"Yes."

For several tense seconds the lad gazed at his questioner. Finally his gaze shifted to the hills. "I guess you're straight," he said presently.

"I guess she wouldn't have you for a relation if you wasn't straight."

The elder man laughed. "That's right--she wouldn't, young man."

"How's the sheriff guy?" asked the boy.

"He's getting along well enough. What made you ask?"

"Oh, nothin'. I hate to see any guy get hurt."

"I'm glad to hear you say that. I begin to think you are a bigger man than he is."

"Me?" And Collie flushed, misunderstanding the other's drift. "I guess you're kiddin'."