Bucky Makes A Discovery

: Bucky O'connor

For a week Bucky had been in the little border town of Noches, called

there by threats of a race war between the whites and the Mexicans.

Having put the quietus on this, he was returning to Epitaph by way of

the Huachuca Mountains. There are still places in Arizona where rapid

transit can be achieved more expeditiously on the back of a bronco than

by means of the railroad, even when the latter is available. So now

Buck was taking a short cut across country instead of making the two

train changes, with the consequent inevitable delays that would have

been necessary to travel by rail.



He traveled at night and in the early morning, to avoid the heat of the

midday sun, and it was in the evening of the second and last day that

the skirts of happy chance led him to an adventure that was to affect

his whole future life. He knew a waterhole on the Del Oro, where cows

were wont to frequent even in the summer drought, and toward this he was

making in the fag-end of the sultry day. While still some hundred yards

distant he observed a spiral of smoke rising from a camp-fire at the

spring, and he at once made a more circumspect approach. For it might be

any one of a score of border ruffians who owed him a grudge and would be

glad to pay it in the silent desert that tells no tales and betrays no

secrets to the inquisitive.



He flung the bridle-rein over his pony's neck and crept forward on foot,

warily and noiselessly. While still some little way from the water-hole

he was arrested by a sound that startled him. He could make out a

raucous voice in anger and a pianissimo accompaniment of womanish sobs.



"You're mine to do with as I like. I'm your uncle. I've raised you

from a kid, and, by the great mogul! you can't sneak off with the first

good-for nothing scoundrel that makes eyes at you. Thought you had

slipped away from me, you white-faced, sniveling little idiot, but I'll

show you who is master."



The lash of a whip rose and fell twice on quivering flesh before Bucky

leaped into the fireglow and wrested the riding-whip from the hands of

the angry man who was plying it.



"Dare to touch a woman, would you?" cried the ranger, swinging the

whip vigorously across the broad shoulders of the man. "Take that--and

that--and that, you brute!"



But when Bucky had finished with the fellow and flung him a limp,

writhing huddle of welts to the ground, three surprises awaited him. The

first was that it was not a woman he had rescued at all, but a boy, and,

as the flickering firelight played on his face, the ranger came to an

unexpected recognition. The slim lad facing him was no other than Frank

Hardman, whom he had left a few days before at the Rocking Chair under

the care of motherly Mrs. Mackenzie. The young man's eyes went back with

instant suspicion to the fellow he had just punished, and his suspicions

were verified when the leaping light revealed the face of the showman

Anderson.



Bucky laughed. "I ce'tainly seem to be interfering in your affairs a

good deal, Mr. Anderson. You may take my word for it that you was the

last person in the world I expected to meet here, unless it might be

this boy. I left him safe at a ranch fifty miles from here, and I left

you a staid business man of Epitaph. But it seems neither of you stayed

hitched. Why for this yearning to travel?"



"He found me where I was staying. I was out riding alone on an errand

for Mrs. Mackenzie when he met me and made me go with him. He has

arranged to have me meet his wife in Mexico. The show wouldn't draw well

without me. You know I do legerdemain," Frank explained, in his low,

sweet voice.



"So you had plans of your own, Mr. Anderson. Now, that was right

ambitious of you. But I reckon I'll have to interfere with them again.

Go through him, kid, and relieve him of any guns he happens to be

garnished with. Might as well help yourself to his knives, too. He's so

fond of letting them fly around promiscuous he might hurt himself. Good.

Now we can sit down and have a friendly talk. Where did you say you was

intending to spend the next few weeks before I interrupted so unthinking

and disarranged your plans? I'm talking to you, Mr. Anderson."



"I was heading for Sonora," the man whined.



What Bucky thought was: "Right strange direction to be taking for

Sonora. I'll bet my pile you were going up into the hills to meet some

of Wolf Leroy's gang. But why you were taking the kid along beats me,

unless it was just cussedness." What he said was:



"Oh, you'll like Epitaph a heap better. I allow you ought to stay at

that old town. It's a real interesting place. Finished in the adobe

style and that sort of thing. The jail's real comfy, too."



"Would you like something to eat, sir?" presently asked Frank timidly.



"Would I? Why, I'm hungry enough to eat a leather mail-sack. Trot on

your grub, young man, and watch my smoke."



Bucky did ample justice to the sandwiches and lemonade the lad set in

front of him, but he ate with a wary eye on a possible insurrection on

the part of his prisoner.



"I'm a new man," he announced briskly, when he had finished. "That veal

loaf sandwich went sure to the right spot. If you had been a young lady

instead of a boy you couldn't fix things up more appetizing."



The lad's face flushed with embarrassment, apparently at the ranger's

compliment, and the latter, noticed how delicate the small face was. It

made an instinctive, wistful appeal for protection, and Bucky felt an

odd little stirring at his tender Irish heart.



"Might think I was the kid's father to see what an interest I take in

him," the young man told himself reprovingly. "It's all tommyrot, too.

A boy had ought to have more grit. I expect he needed that licking all

right I saved him from."



When Bucky had eaten, the camp things were repacked for travel. Epitaph

was only twenty-three miles away, and the ranger preferred to ride

in the cool of the night rather than sit up till daybreak with his

prisoner. Besides, he could then catch the morning train from that town

and save almost a day.



So hour after hour they plodded on, the prisoner in front, O'Connor in

the center, and Frank Hardman bringing up the rear. It was an Arizona

night of countless stars, with that peculiar soft, velvety atmosphere

that belongs to no other land or time. In the distance the jagged,

violet line of mountains rose in silhouette against a sky not many

shades lighter, while nearer the cool moonlight flooded a land grown

magical under its divine touch.



The ranger rode with a limp ease that made for rest, his body shifting

now and again in the saddle, so as to change the weight and avoid

stiffness.



It must have been well past midnight that he caught the long breath of

a sigh behind him. The trail had broadened at that point, for they were

now down in the rolling plain, so that two could ride abreast in the

road. Bucky fell back and put a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the

boy.



"Plumb fagged out, kid?" he asked.



"I am tired. Is it far?"



"About four miles. Stick it out, and we'll be there in no time."



"Yes, sir."



"Don't call me sir. Call me Bucky."



"Yes, sir."



Bucky laughed. "You're ce'tainly the queerest kid I've run up against.

I guess you didn't scramble up in this rough-and-tumble West like I did.

You're too soft for this country." He let his firm brown fingers travel

over the lad's curly hair and down the smooth cheek. "There it is again.

Shrinking away as if I was going to hurt you. I'll bet a biscuit you

never licked the stuffing out of another fellow in your life."



"No, sir," murmured the youth, and Bucky almost thought he detected a

little, chuckling laugh.



"Well, you ought to be ashamed of it. When come back from old Mexico I'm

going to teach you how to put up your dukes. You're going to ride the

range with me, son, and learn to stick to your saddle when the bronc and

you disagrees. Oh, I'll bet all you need is training. I'll make a man

out of you yet," the ranger assured his charge cheerfully. "Will you?"

came the innocent reply, but Bucky for a moment had the sense of being

laughed at.



"Yes, I 'will you,' sissy," he retorted, without the least exasperation.

"Don't think you know it all. Right now you're riding like a wooden man.

You want to take it easy in the saddle. There's about a dozen different

positions you can take to rest yourself." And Bucky put him through a

course of sprouts. "Don't sit there laughing at folks that knows a heap

more than you ever will get in your noodle, and perhaps you won't be so

done up at the end of a little jaunt like this," he concluded. And to

his conclusion he presently added a postscript: "Why, I know kids your

age can ride day and night for a week on the round-up without being all

in. How old are you, son?"



"Eighteen."



"That's a lie," retorted the ranger, with immediate frankness. "You're

not a day over fifteen, I'll bet."



"I meant to say fifteen," meekly corrected the youth.



"That's another of them. You meant to say eighteen, but you found I

wouldn't swallow it. Now, Master Frank, you want to learn one thing

prompt if you and I are to travel together. I can't stand a liar. You

tell the truth, or I'll give you the best licking you ever had in your

life."



"You're as bad a bully as he is," the boy burst out, flushing angrily.



"Oh, no, I'm not," came the ranger's prompt unmoved answer. "But just

because you're such a weak little kid that I could break you in two

isn't any reason why I should put up with any foolishness from you.

I mean to see that you act proper, the way an honest kid ought to do.

Savvy?"



"I'd like to know who made you my master?" demanded the boy hotly.



"You've ce'tainly been good and spoiled, but you needn't ride your high

hawss with me. Here's the long and the short of it. To tell lies ain't

square. If I ask you anything you don't want to answer tell me to go to

hell, but don't lie to me. If you do I'll punish you the same as if you

were my brother, so long as you trail with me. If you don't like it, cut

loose and hit the pike for yourself."



"I've a good mind to go."



Bucky waved a hand easily into space. "That's all right, too, son.

There's a heap of directions you can hit from here. Take any one you

like. But if I was as beat as you are, I think I'd keep on the Epitaph

road." He laughed his warm, friendly laugh, before the geniality of

which discord seemed to melt, and again his arm went round the other's

weary shoulders with a caressing gesture that was infinitely protecting.



The boy laughed tremulously. "You're awfully good to me. I know I'm a

cry-baby, sissy boy, but if you'll be patient with me I'll try to be

gamer."



It certainly was strange the way Bucky's pulse quickened and his blood

tingled when he touched the little fellow and heard that velvet

voice's soft murmur. Yes, it surely was strange, but perhaps the young

Irishman's explanation was not the correct one, after all. The cause he

offered to himself for this odd joy and tender excitement was perfectly

simple.



"I'm surely plumb locoed, or else gone soft in the haid," he told

himself grimly.



But the reason for those queer little electric shocks that pulsed

through him was probably a more elemental and primeval one than even

madness.



Arrived at Epitaph, Bucky turned loose his prisoner with a caution and

made his preparations to leave immediately for Chihuahua. Collins had

returned to Tucson, but was in touch with the situation and ready to set

out for any point where he was needed.



Bucky, having packed, was confronted with a difficulty. He looked at it,

and voiced his perplexity.



"Now, what am I going to do with you, Curly Haid? I expect I had better

ship you back to the Rocking Chair."



"I don't want to go back there. He'll come out again and find me after

you leave."



"Where do you want to go, then? If you were a girl I could put you in

the convent school here," he reflected aloud.



Again that swift, deep blush irradiated the youth's cheeks. "Why can't I

go with you?" he asked shyly.



The ranger laughed. "Mebbe you think I'm going on a picnic. Why, I'm

starting out to knock the chip off Old Man Trouble's shoulder. Like as

not some greaser will collect Mr. Bucky's scalp down in manyana land.

No, sir, this doesn't threaten to be a Y. P. S. C. E. excursion."



"If it is so dangerous as that, you will need help. I'm awful good at

making up, and I can speak Spanish like a native."



"Sho! You don't want to go running your neck into a noose. It's a

jail-break I'm planning, son. There may be guns a-popping before we

get back to God's country--if we ever do. Add to that, trouble and then

some, for there's a revolution scheduled for old Chihuahua just now, as

your uncle happens to know from reliable information."



"Two can always work better than one. Try me, Bucky," pleaded the boy,

the last word slipping out with a trailing upward inflection that was

irresistible.



"Sure you won't faint if we get in a tight pinch, Curly?" scoffed

O'Connor, even though in his mind he was debating a surrender. For he

was extraordinarily taken with the lad, and his judgment justified what

the boy had said.



"I shall not be afraid if you are with me."



"But I may not be with you. That's the trouble. Supposing I should be

caught, what would you do?"



"Follow any orders you had given me before that time. If you had not

given any, I would use my best judgment."



"I'll give them now," smiled Bucky. "If I'm lagged, make straight for

Arizona and tell Webb Mackenzie or Val Collins."



"Then you will take me?" cried the boy eagerly.



"Only on condition that you obey orders explicitly. I'm running this

cutting-out expedition."



"I wouldn't think of disobeying."



"And I don't want you to tell me any lies."



"No."



Bucky's big brown fist caught the little one and squeezed it. "Then it's

a deal, kid. I only hope I'm doing right to take you."



"Of course you are. Haven't you promised to make a man of me?" And again

Bucky caught that note of stifled laughter in the voice, though the big

brown eyes met his quite seriously.



They took the train that night for El Paso, Bucky in the lower berth and

his friend in the upper of section six of one of the Limited's Pullman

cars. The ranger was awake and up with the day. For a couple of hours

he sat in the smoking section and discussed politics with a Chicago

drummer. He knew that Frank was very tired, and he let him sleep till

the diner was taken on at Lordsburg. Then he excused himself to the

traveling man.



"I reckon I better go and wake up my pardner. I see the chuck-wagon is

toddling along behind us."



Bucky drew aside the curtains and shook the boy gently by the shoulder.

Frank's eyes opened and looked at the ranger with that lack of

comprehension peculiar to one roused suddenly from deep sleep.



"Time to get up, Curly. The nigger just gave the first call for the

chuck-wagon."



An understanding of the situation flamed over the boy's face. He

snatched the curtains from the Arizonian and gathered them tightly

together. "I'll thank you not to be so familiar," he said shortly from

behind the closed curtains.



"I beg your pahdon, your royal highness. I should have had myself

announced and craved an audience, I reckon," was Bucky's ironic retort;

and swiftly on the heels of it he added. "You make me tired, kid."



O'Connor was destined to be "made tired" a good many times in the

course of the next few days. In all the little personal intimacies

Frank possessed a delicate fastidiousness outside the experience of the

ranger. He was a scrupulously clean man himself, and rather nice as

to his personal habits, but it did not throw him into a flame of

embarrassment to brush his teeth before his fellow passengers. Nor did

it send him into a fit if a friend happened to drop into his room while

he was finishing his dressing. Bucky agreed with himself that this

excess of shyness was foolishness, and that to indulge the boy was

merely to lay up future trouble for him. A dozen times he was on the

point of speaking his mind on the subject, but some unusual quality of

innocence in the lad tied his tongue.



"Blame it all, I'm getting to be a regular old granny. What Master Frank

needs is a first-class dressing-down, and here the little cuss has got

me bluffed to a fare-you-well so that I'm mum as a hooter on the nest,"

he admitted to himself ruefully. "Just when something comes up that

needs a good round damn I catch that big brown Sunday school eye of his,

and it's Bucky back to Webster's unabridged. I've got to quit trailing

with him, or I'll be joining the church first thing I know. He makes me

feel like I want to be good, confound the little swindle."



Notwithstanding the ranger's occasional moments of exasperation, the two

got along swimmingly. Each of them found a continued pleasure in delving

into the other's unexplored mental recesses. They drifted into one of

those quick, spontaneous likings that are rare between man and man. Some

subtle quality of affection bubbled up like a spring in the hearts of

each for the other. Young Hardman could perhaps have explained what lay

at the roots of it, but O'Connor admitted that he was "buffaloed" when

he attempted an analysis of his unusual feeling.



From El Paso a leisurely run on the Mexican Central Pacific took them to

Chihuahua, a quaint old city something about the size of El Paso. Both

Bucky and his friend were familiar with the manners of the country, so

that they felt at home among the narrow adobe streets, the lounging,

good-natured peons, and the imitation Moorish architecture. They found

rooms at a quiet, inconspicuous hotel, and began making their plans for

an immediate departure in the event that they succeeded in their object.



At a distance it had seemed an easy thing to plan the escape of David

Henderson and to accomplish it by craft, but a sight of the heavy stone

walls that encircled the prison and of the numerous armed guards who

paced to and fro on the walls, put a more chilling aspect on their

chances.



"It isn't a very gay outlook," Bucky admitted cheerfully to his

companion, "but I expect we can pull it off somehow. If these Mexican

officials weren't slower than molasses in January it might have been

better to wait and have him released by process of law on account of

Hardman's confession. But it would take them two or three years to come

to a decision. They sure do hate to turn loose a gringo when they have

got the hog-tie on him. Like as not they would decide against him at the

last, then. Course I've got the law machinery grinding, too, but I'm not

banking on it real heavy. We'll get him out first any old way, then get

the government to O. K. the thing."



"How were you thinking of proceeding?"



"I expect it's time to let you in on the ground floor, son. I reckon you

happen to know that down in these Spanish countries there's usually a

revolution hatching. There s two parties among the aristocrats, those

for the government and those ferninst. The 'ins' stand pat, but the

'outs' have always got a revolution up their sleeves. Now, there's

mostly a white man mixed up in the affair. They have to have him to run

it and to shoot afterward when the government wins. You see, somebody

has to be shot, and it's always so much to the good if they can line

up gringoes instead of natives. Nine times out of ten it's an

Irish-American lad that is engineering the scheme. This time it happens

to be Mickey O'Halloran, an old friend of mine. I'm going to put it up

to Mick to find a way."



"But it isn't any affair of his. He won't do it, will he?"



"Oh, I thought I told you he was Irish."



"Well?"



"And spoiling for trouble, of course. Is it likely he could keep his

fist out of the hive when there's such a gem of a chance to get stung?"



It had been Frank's suggestion that they choose rooms at a hotel which

open into each other and also connect with an adjoining pair. The reason

for this had not at first been apparent to the ranger, but as soon as

they were alone Frank explained.



"It is very likely that we shall be under surveillance after a day or

two, especially if we are seen around the prison a good deal. Well,

we'll slip out the back way to-night, disguised in some other rig, come

boldly in by the front door, and rent the rooms next ours. Then we shall

be able to go and come, either as ourselves or as our neighbors. It will

give us a great deal more liberty."



"Unless we should get caught. Then we would have a great deal less.

What's your notion of a rig-up to disguise us, kid?"



"We might have several, in case of emergencies. For one thing, we

could easily be street showmen. You can do fancy shooting and I can do

sleight-of-hand tricks or tell fortunes."



"You would be a gipsy lad?"



The youngster blushed. "A gipsy girl, and you might be my husband."



"I'm no play actor, even if you are," said Bucky. "I don't want to be

your husband, thank you."



"All you would have to do is to be sullen and rough. It is easy enough."



"And you think you could pass for a girl? You're slim and soft enough,

but I'll bet you would give it away inside of an hour."



The boy laughed, and shot a swift glance at O'Connor under his long

lashes. "I appeared as a girl in one of the acts of the show for years.

Nobody ever suspected that I wasn't."



"We might try it, but we have no clothes for the part."



"Leave that to me. I'll buy some to-day while you are looking the ground

over for our first assault an the impregnable fortress."



"I don't know. It seems to me pretty risky. But you might buy the

things, and we'll see how you look in them. Better not get all the

things at the same store. Sort of scatter your purchases around."



They separated at the door of the hotel, Frank to choose the materials

he needed, and O'Connor to look up O'Halloran and get a permit to

visit the prison from the proper authorities. When the latter returned

triumphantly with his permit he found the boy busy with a needle and

thread and surrounded by a litter of dress-making material.



"I'm altering this to fit me and fixing it up," he explained.



"Holy smoke! Who taught you to sew?" asked Bucky, in surprise.



"My aunt, Mrs. Hardman. I used to do all the plain sewing on my

costumes. Did you see your friend and get your permit?"



"You bet I did, and didn't. Mickey was out, but I left him a note.

The other thing I pulled off all right. I'm to be allowed to visit the

prison and make a careful inspection of it at my leisure There's nothing

like a pull, son."



"Does the permit say you are to be allowed to steal any one of the

prisoners you take a fancy to? asked Frank, with a smile.



"No, it forgot to say that. When do you expect to have that toggery

made?"



"A good deal of it is already made, as you see. I'm just making a few

changes. Do you want to try on your suit?"



"Is THIS mine?" asked the ranger, picking up with smiling contempt the

rather gaudy blouse that lay on a chair.



"Yes, sir, that is yours. Go and put it on and we'll see how it fits."



Bucky returned a few minutes later in his gipsy uniform, with a

deprecating grin.



"I'll have to stain your face. Then you'll do very well," said Frank,

patting and pulling at the clothes here and there. "It's a good fit, if

I do say it that chose it. The first thing you want to do when you get

out in it is to roll in the dust and get it soiled. No respectable gipsy

wears new clothes. Better have a tear or two in it, too."



"You ce'tainly should have been a girl, the way you take to clothes,

Curly."



"Making up was my business for a good many years, you know," returned

the lad quietly. "If you'll step into the other room for about fifteen

minutes I'll show you how well I can do it."



It was a long half-hour later that Bucky thumped on the door between

the rooms. "Pretty nearly ready, kid? Seems to me it is taking you a

thundering long time to get that outfit on."



"How long do you think it ought to take a lady to dress?"



"Ten minutes is long enough, and fifteen, say, if she is going to a

dance. You've been thirty-five by my Waterbury."



"It's plain you never were married, Mr. Innocent. Why, a girl can't fix

her hair in less than half an hour."



"Well, you got a wig there, ain't you? It doesn't take but about five

seconds to stick that on. Hurry up, gringo! I'm clean through this old

newspaper."



"Read the advertisements," came saucily through the door.



"I've read the durned things twice."



"Learn them by heart," the sweet voice advised.



"Oh, you go to Halifax!"



Nevertheless, Mr. Bucky had to wait his comrade's pleasure. But when he

got a vision of the result, it was so little what he had expected

that it left him staring in amazement, his jaw fallen and his eyes

incredulous.



The vision swept him a low bow. "How do you like Bonita?" it demanded

gaily.



Bucky's eyes circled the room, to make sure that the boy was not hidden

somewhere, and came back to rest on his surprise with a look that was

almost consternation. Was this vivid, dazzling creature the boy he had

been patronizing, lecturing, promising to thrash any time during the

past four days? The thing was unbelievable, not yet to be credited by

his jarred brain. How incredibly blind he had been! What an idiot of

sorts! Why, the marks of sex sat on her beyond any possibility of

doubt. Every line of the slim, lissom figure, every curve of the soft,

undulating body, the sweep of rounded arm, of tapering waist-line, of

well-turned ankle, contributed evidence of what it were folly to ask

further proof. How could he have ever seen those lovely, soft-lashed

eyes and the delicate little hands without conviction coming home to

him? And how could he have heard the low murmur of her voice, the catch

of her sobs, without knowing that they were a denial of masculinity?



She was dressed like a Spanish dancing girl, in short kilts, red sash,

and jaunty little cap placed sidewise on her head. She wore a wig of

black hair, and her face was stained to a dusky, gipsy hue. Over her

thumb hung castanets and in her hand was a tambourine. Roguishly

she began to sway into a slow, rhythmic dance, beating time with her

instruments as she moved. Gradually the speed quickened to a faster

time. She swung gracefully to and fro with all the lithe agility of

the race she personified. No part could have been better conceived or

executed. Even physically she displayed the large, brilliant eyes, the

ringleted, coal-black hair, the tawny skin, and the flashing smile that

showed small teeth of dazzling ivory, characteristic of the Romanies

he had met. It was a daring part to play, but the young man watching

realized that she had the free grace to carry it out successfully.

She danced the fandango to a finish, swept him another low bow, and

presented laughingly to him the tambourine for his donation. Then,

suddenly flinging aside the instrument, she curtsied and caught at his

hand.



"Will the senor have his fortune told?"



Bucky drew a handful of change from his pocket and selected a gold

eagle. "I suppose I must cross your palm with gold," he said, even while

his subconscious mind was running on the new complication presented to

him by this discovery.



He was very clear about one thing. He must not let her know that he knew

her for a girl. To him she must still be a boy, or their relation would

become impossible. She had trusted in her power to keep her secret from

him. On no other terms would she have come with him; of so much he was

sure, even while his mind groped for a sufficient reason to account for

an impulse that might have impelled her. If she found out that he knew,

the knowledge would certainly drive her at once from him. For he knew

that not the least charm of the extraordinary fascination she had

for him lay in her sweet innocence of heart, a fresh innocence

that consisted with this gay Romany abandon, and even with a mental

experience of the sordid, seamy side of life as comprehensive as that of

many a woman twice her age. She had been defrauded out of her childish

inheritance of innocence, but, somehow, even in her foul environment

the seeds of a rare personal purity had persistently sprung up and

flourished. Some flowers are of such native freshness that no nauseous

surroundings can kill their fragrance. And this was one of them.



Meanwhile, her voice ran on with the patter of her craft. There was the

usual dark woman to be circumvented and the light one to be rewarded.

Jealousies and rivalries played their part in the nonsense she glibly

recited, and somewhere in the future lay, of course, great riches and

happiness for him.



With a queer little tug at his heart he watched the dainty finger

that ran so lightly over his open palm, watched, too, the bent head so

gracefully fine of outline and the face so mobile of expression when the

deep eyes lifted to his in question of the correctness of her reading.

He would miss the little partner that had wound himself so tightly

round his heart. He wondered if he would find compensating joy in this

exquisite creature whom a few moments had taken worlds distant from him.



Suddenly tiring of her diversion, she dropped his hand. "You don't say

I do it well," she charged, aware suspiciously, at last, of his grave

silence.



"You do it very well indeed. I didn't think you had it in you, kid.

What's worrying me is that I can never live up to such a sure enough

gipsy as you."



"All you have to do is to look sour and frown if anybody gets too

familiar with me. You can do that, can't you?"



"You bet I can," he answered promptly, with unnecessary emphasis.



"And look handsome," she teased.



"Oh, that will be easy for me--since you are going to make me up. As a

simple child of nature I'm no ornament to the scenery, but art's a heap

improving sometimes."



She thought, but did not say, that art would go a long way before it

could show anything more pleasing than this rider of the plains. It was

not alone his face, with the likable blue eyes that could say so many

things in a minute, but the gallant ease of his bearing. Such a springy

lightness, such sinewy grace of undulating muscle, were rare even on

the frontier. She had once heard Webb Mackenzie say of him that he could

whip his weight in wildcats, and it was easy of belief after seeing how

surely he was master of the dynamic power in him. It is the emergency

that sifts men, and she had seen him rise to several with a readiness

that showed the stuff in him.



That evening they slipped out unobserved in the dusk, and a few minutes

later a young gipsy and his bride presented themselves at the inn to be

put up. The scowling young Romany was particular, considering that he

spent most nights in the open, with a sky for a roof. So the master of

the inn thought when he rejected on one pretense or another the first

two rooms that were shown him. He wanted two rooms, and they must

connect. Had the innkeeper such apartments? The innkeeper had, but he

would very much like to see the price in advance if he was going to

turn over to guests of such light baggage the best accommodations in the

house. This being satisfactorily arranged, the young gipsies were left

to themselves in the room they had rented.



The first thing that the man did when they were alone was to roll a

cigarette, which operation he finished deftly with one hand, while the

other swept a match in a circular motion along his trousers leg. In very

fair English the Spanish gipsy said: "You ce'tainly ought to learn to

smoke, kid. Honest, it's more comfort than a wife."



"How do you know, since you are not married?" she asked archly.



"I been noticing some of my poor unfortunate friends," he grinned.