LITMIR.BIZ

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yes, in time you would be ransomed, and for a few minutes you might think it romantic –– the ‘Bandit Bride,’ the ‘Rebel Queen,’ the ‘Girl Guerrilla,’ and all that sort of dope, –– but believe me, child, by the time the ransom was paid you would be sure that north of the line was the garden spot of the earth and heaven enough for you, if you could only see it again!”

      She gave him one sulky resentful look and dug her heel into Pat. He leaped a length ahead of the roan and started running.

      “You can pretend you are El Gavilan after a lark, and see how near you will get!” she called derisively and leaned forward urging the black to his best.

      “You glorified gray-eyed lark!” he cried. “Gather her in, Pardner!”

      But he rode wide to the side instead of at the heels of Pat and thus they rode neck and neck joyously while he laughed at her intent to leave him behind.

      The corrals and long hay ricks of Granados were now in sight, backed by the avenue of palms and streaks of green where the irrigation ditches led water to the outlying fields and orchards.

      “El Gavilan!” she called laughingly. “Beat him, Pat, –– beat him to the home gate!”

      Then out of a fork of the road to the left, an automobile swept to them from a little valley, one man was driving like the wind and another waved and shouted. Rhodes’ eyes assured him that the shouting man was Philip Singleton, and he rode closer to the girl, grasped her bridle, and slowed down his own horse as well as hers.

      “You’ll hate me some more for this,” he stated as she tried to jerk loose and failed, “but that yelping windmill is your fond guardian, and he probably thinks I am trying to kidnap you.”

      She halted at that, laughing and breathless, and waved her hand to the occupants of the car.

      “I can be good as an angel now that I have had my day!” she said. “Hello folks! What’s the excitement?”

      The slender man whom Rhodes had termed the yelping windmill, removed his goggles, and glared, hopelessly distressed at the flushed, half-laughing girl.

      “Billie –– Wilfreda!”

      “Now, now, Papa Singleton! Don’t swear, and don’t ever get frightened because I am out of sight.” Then she cast one withering glance at Rhodes, adding, –– “and if you engage range bosses like this one no one on Granados will ever get out of sight!”

      “The entire house force has been searching for you over two hours. Where have you been?”

      “Oh, come along home to supper, and don’t fuss,” she suggested. “Just because you hid my other saddle I went on a little pasear of my own, and I met up with this roan on my way home.”

      Rhodes grinned at the way she eliminated the rider of the roan horse, but the driver of the machine was not deceived by the apparent slight. He had seen that half defiant smile of comradeship, and his tone was not nice.

      “It is not good business to waste time and men in this way,” he stated flatly. “It would be better that word is left with the right ones when you go over the border to amuse yourself in Sonora.”

      The smile went out of the eyes of the girl, and she held her head very erect.

      “You and Mr. Rhodes appear to agree perfectly, Mr. Conrad,” she remarked. “He was trying to show me how little chance I would stand against El Gavilan or even the Yaqui slave traders if they ranged up towards the border.”

      “Slave traders?” repeated Conrad. “You are making your jokes about that, of course, but the camp followers of the revolution is a different thing; –– everywhere they are ranging.”

      The girl did not answer, and the car sped on to the ranch house while the two horses cantered along after them, but the joyous freedom of the ride had vanished, lost back there on the ranges when the other minds met them in a clash.

      “Say,” observed Rhodes, “I said nothing about Yaqui slave traders. Where did you get that?”

      “I heard Conrad and his man Brehman talking of the profits, –– sixty pesos a head I think it was. I wonder how they knew?”

      Singleton was waiting for them at the entrance to the ranch house, great adobe with a patio eighty feet square in the center. In the old old days it had housed all the vaqueros, but now the ranchmen were divided up on different outlying rancherias and the many rooms of Granados were mostly empty. Conrad, his secretary Brehman, and their cook occupied one corner, while Singleton and Billie and Tia Luz with her brood of helpers occupied the other.

      Singleton was not equal to the large hospitality of the old days when the owner of a hacienda was a sort of king, dispensing favors and duties to a small army of retainers. A companionable individual he was glad to meet and chat or smoke with, but if the property had been his own he would have sold every acre and spent the proceeds in some city of the East where a gentleman could get something for his money.

      Conrad had halted a moment after Singleton climbed out of the car.

      “I sent word to Rhodes to come up from La Partida because of the horse shipment,” he said looking across the level where the two riders were just entering the palm avenue. “Because of that it would seem he is to be my guest, and I have room.”

      “Oh, we all have room, more room than anything else,” answered Singleton drearily, “but it will be as Billie says. I see Pike’s nag here, and she always wants Pike.”

      The milky blue eyes of Conrad slanted towards Singleton in discreet contempt of the man who allowed a wayward girl to decide the guests or the housing of them. But he turned away.

      “The telephone will reach me if there is anything I can do,” he said.

      Singleton did not reply. He knew Conrad absolutely disapproved of the range boss being accepted as a family guest. Between Billie and Captain Pike, who was a privileged character, he did not quite see how he could prevent it in the case of Rhodes, although he was honestly so glad to see the girl ride home safe that he would have accepted any guest of the range she suggested.

      “Papa Phil,” she said smiling up into his face teasingly, “I’m on my native heath again, so don’t be sulky. And I have a darling new namesake I’ve been making clothes for for a month, and I’ll tell you all about him if you’ll give Mr. Rhodes and me a good supper. He is Cap Pike’s family, and will have the south corner room; please tell Tia Luz.”

      And when Billie was like that, and called him “Papa Phil,” and looked up at him with limpid childish eyes, there was never much else to be said.

      “I’ll show Rhodes his quarters myself, and you make haste and get your habit off. Luz has been waiting supper an hour. Today’s paper reports a band of bandits running off stock on the Alton ranch, and it is on the Arizona side of the border. That should show you it is no time to ride out of sight of the corrals.”

      “Now, now! you know the paper raids aren’t real raids. They’ll have a new one to get excited over tomorrow.”

      She ran away to be petted and scolded and prayed for by Tia Luz, who had been her nurse, and was now housekeeper and the privileged one to whom Billie turned for help and sympathy.

      “You laugh! but the heart was melting in me with the fear,” she grumbled as she fastened the yellow sash over the white lawn into which Billie had dashed hurriedly. “It is not a joke to be caught in the raiding of Ramon Rotil, or any of the other accursed! Who could think it was south you were riding? I was the one to send them north in the search, every man of them, and Señor Conrad looks knives at me. That man thinks I am a liar, sure he does! and the saints know I was honest and knew nothing.”

      “Sure you know nothing, never could and never did, you dear old bag of cotton,” and Billie pinched affectionately the fat arm of Tia Luz and tickled her under her fat chin. “Quick Luzita, and fasten me up. Supper waits, and men are always raving wolves.”

      She

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