She passed from the parlor to the bedrooms, and the lean-to kitchen and washhouse. Everything was in perfect order, except for a slight dust which had gathered.

"You see, Hip-Lee and one of the choremen and I can fix it up in a day ready for occupation. That's how my daddy likes to have it. My daddy loved our lovely momma. I don't guess he'll ever get over losing her."

Then she looked up, and her shadow of sadness had gone. "Come along,"

she cried. "You've seen it all. So we'll just shut it up again, and get back to our camp. I'm guessing that kettle'll be boiled dry."

But the kettle was only just on the boil, and the girl made the tea while Gordon set out the food and plates. Then, when all was ready, they sat down to their _tete-a-tete_ picnic with all the enjoyment of two children, but with that between them which seemed to fill the whole air of the valley with an intoxicating sense of happiness and delight.

"And what about that other place--that log and adobe shack you told me of?" demanded Gordon, taking his tea-cup from the girl's hand.

Hazel laughed.

"That's a dandy shack, full of ants and crawly things, and its roof leaks water. It's up on a hill where the wind just blows pneumonia through it. If I showed it you I sort of reckon you'd be scared to use it for--for anything."

Gordon joined in her laugh.

"I guess it'll be the real thing for my job. Say, don't you sort of feel like a criminal? I do." He laughed again as he passed the plate of cut meats to his companion.

"Criminals?" laughed Hazel buoyantly. "Why, I just feel as if you and my daddy and I were all hanging by the neck on the highest peak of the Rockies. Say, you're sure--sure of things?"

"I guess there's nothing sure in this world, except that no saint was ever a financial genius. Sure? Say, how can we be sure till we've fixed things the way we want 'em? But I tell you we've got to make good. I won't believe we can fail. We mustn't fail. If only Peter can get hold of Slosson's messages. Only one will do. If he can do that, and it's what I expect, why--the whole thing becomes just a practical joke, only not so harmful."

Gordon attacked his food with a healthy appetite, and the girl watched him happily.

"It's the cleverest thing ever," she cried, "and--and I can't think how you thought of it, and, having thought of it--dared to attempt to carry it out."

Gordon smiled.

"I'm not clever, but--I did think of it, didn't I? And as to carrying it out, why, I guess we're the same as the others. We're 'sharps.'

We're land pirates. We're ground sharks."

Hazel set her cup down.

"But you are clever. I didn't mean it that way."

"You're the first person ever told me."

"Am I?" Hazel blushed. Nor did she know why. Gordon, watching her, sat entranced.

"Sure. Most everybody reckons I'm just a--a bit of an athlete--that's all. My sister Gracie never gets tired of telling me what an all-sorts-of-fool I am."

"How old is your--Gracie?"

"Thirteen."

"That makes a diff'rence."

"Oh, she doesn't get it all her own way," laughed Gordon. "I hide her chocolates. That makes her mad. She's a passion for candy. But the old dad is a bully feller. He's all sorts of a sportsman, and he guesses that the best day in his life will be the one in which he finds I'm not a fool."

Hazel gurgled merrily.

"That'll come along soon."

Gordon nodded.

"Gee! It makes me laugh to think of it. But say," he went on, a moment later, "I'm glad you don't think me a fool. I'm just longing for----" But he broke off and abruptly rose from the ground. Their meal was finished. "Do we wash things or do we just pack 'em up?"

"Oh, we'll pack 'em," said Hazel, rising hastily. A sort of nervous hurry was in her movement. "We won't rob the choreman and Hip-Lee of their rights. Say, you bring up the horses, and I'll pack. We can water them at the lake as we pass out--the horses, I mean."

A few minutes later Gordon returned with the horses.

As he rounded the bend in the now overgrown track, which had once formed the main approach to the little ranch, and caught sight of the graceful fawn-clad figure moving about, he stood for a moment to feast his eyes upon the picture the girl made. She was all he had ever dreamed of in life. There was nothing of the delicate exotic here, none of the graceful gowning of a city, concealing an unhealthy body reduced almost to infirmity by the unwholesome night life of modern social demands. She was just a living example of the grace with which Nature so readily endows those who obey her wonderful, helpful laws.

The perfect contours, the elasticity of gait, the clear, keen, beautiful eyes, and the pretty tanning under the shade of her wide-brimmed hat.

The beating of the man's heart quickened. All his feelings rose, and set him longing to tell her all that was in his heart. He wanted then and there to become her champion for all time. A great passionate wave set the warm blood of youth surging to his head. He felt that she belonged to him, and him alone. Had he not fought for her as those warriors of old would have done? Yes, somehow he felt that she was his, but, with a strange cowardice, he feared to put his fate to the test through words which could never express half of all he felt. He longed and feared, and he told himself----

But Hazel was looking in his direction. She saw him standing there, and peremptorily summoned him to her presence.

"For goodness' sake," she cried. "Dreaming when there's work to be done. Bring them right along, or we'll never get started. There's all twenty miles before supper."

Gordon hurried forward, and as he came up he made his excuses.

"I had to look," he said apologetically. "You see it isn't every day a feller gets a chance to see a real picture--like I've seen. Say, these hills, I guess, can hand all that Nature can paint that way, but you need a human life in it to make a picture real to just an ordinary man's eyes. I--had to look."

But Hazel seemed to have become suddenly aware of something of that which lay behind his words, and she hastily, and with flushed cheeks, turned to the work of saddling her horse. Gordon attempted to help, but she laughingly declined any aid. She pointed at the saddle bags on his saddle.

"They're packed," she said. "Say, I'll show you how to refold your blanket. This way."

Gordon spent some delicious moments struggling with his blanket under the girl's superintendence, and his regret was all too genuine when, at last, it was placed on Sunset's back with the saddle on the top of it.

As for the mare, she was saddled and bitted in the time it took him to cinch Sunset up. By the time he had adjusted the bit Hazel was in the saddle, gazing down at his efforts with merry, laughing eyes.

"It does seem queer," she said. "Here are you, big and strong, and capable of most anything. Yet it puzzles you around a saddle--which is so simple."

Gordon climbed into his saddle at last, and smiled round at her.

"I'm learning more than I ever guessed I'd learn when I left New York.

I've learned a heap of things, and you've taught me most of them.

Sometime I'll have to tell you all you've taught me, and then--and then, why, I guess maybe you'll wonder." He laughed as they moved off.

But somehow Hazel kept her eyes averted.

"Now for the enchanted tunnel again," he cried, in a less serious mood.

"More enchantment, more delight! And then--then to the serious criminal work we have on hand. Criminal. It sounds splendid. It sounds exciting. We're conspirators of the deepest dye."

CHAPTER XVII

THE CODE BOOK