Johnson did not bring a return message from Chicago.

“Family ain’t got its breath yet, I reckon,” he said, as he and Scott discussed the matter. “She looks to me like the sort of youngster who could keep a family pretty well stirred up,” he added, candidly. “Girls have changed sence you and me was young, Scotty.”

“You’ve said it,” was the terse reply.

“If you can believe what these magazine fellers write,” went on the engineer, pensively, “the girl of to-day is a sort of mixture of bronc, ostrich, and rattlesnake thrown in. Smokes, drinks—say, Scotty, I wonder do they chew?”

“Search me,” responded Scott. “I don’t go into society much these days. I reckon, though, you’ve got to take these writing chaps with a grain of salt. There’s probably a few plain, ordinary girls left.”

“There’s plenty of plain ones, if the newspapers ain’t lyin’,” said Johnson, opening his home paper at the society page and revealing three emaciated damsels, clad in extremely short skirts, and with huge bird cages over their ears. “Not that Miss Polly’s like them,” he added, generously. “She’s a looker and a lady, too. I like her.”

“That’s lucky, Tom,” remarked Scott. “I’ll tell her she can stay on.”

Polly did stay on. The next day a telegram came from the happy bridegroom.

“For Heaven’s sake stay where you are. Stop racing around the country. Returning shortly. Bob.”

In the meantime, the days passed like hours. Polly rode with Scott, walked with Adams, chatted with Hard, and helped Mrs. Van Zandt with the housework when the latter would let her, which wasn’t often. Now and then she remembered Joyce Henderson, and when she did, her manner would cool toward Scott; but one couldn’t go on holding a grudge long in that climate. The glorious sun, coming after months of dark chilly weather, seemed to melt anything in one’s heart that was unfriendly. Joyce Henderson soon faded into half-tones.

There were a dozen interesting things to do everyday. A Mexican saddle with its high pommel and cantle, was fascinating after an English one. Foothills and arroyos were a charming part of one’s walk after the boulevards and parks of Chicago. She hugely enjoyed chatting in sign language with the Mexicans and Indians on the place, and before a week had passed she had picked up a number of Spanish phrases which she used with delighted inaccuracy.

She believed that of the men she liked Hard the best. He was the type of man she had always admired; the best type of an American gentleman, a man of good old family traditions, quiet and unassuming and yet full of a pleasant humor. She wondered what had brought him to Mexico—an unhappy love affair with the lady who sang? But Hard was not a man of whom one asked personal questions so she did not find out.

Scott, however, was the man who really interested Polly Street though she did not realize it. Much of that interest was due to the fact that he apparently did not care whether he interested her or not. One moment they would be on excellent terms, and the next he would have forgotten her.

“That young man,” said Polly, sagely, “understands the art of making himself popular. He knows it irritates a woman to see a man absolutely indifferent to her. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand. So he acts that way, for it’s a pose, of course. Just for that I’m going to make him like me—if I can spare the time.”

In this she wronged Marc Scott, who was quite innocent of the art of posing, and whose mind was on other things these days than young women.

One day, about a fortnight after Polly’s arrival, she and Scott rode over to a little village hidden in the mountains some ten miles away. It was a warm day and they were long on the road. It was nearing sundown when they came within sight of Athens. Polly, as usual, was talking:

“They’re such queer people—Mexicans. They can’t run their own country and they don’t want anybody else to come in and run it for them.”

“I wouldn’t call that queer,” replied Scott. “Chances are that if they let someone else in, there wouldn’t be enough country left for them to put in their eye, and they darn well know it.”

“Not necessarily,” replied the girl, sturdily. “We didn’t gobble up Cuba. We just helped them to get on their feet.”

“Cuba’s a different proposition. Cuba was being coerced by an European power and, of course, we had to stop it. Mexico is in the hands of her own people and if you give them time they may make something of her. Then, there’s the oil question. That’s sort of soured the native population on us. You’d never persuade a live Mexican that the U. S. came over here for anything in the world but to grab the oil lands—whether the U. S. was innocent or not.”

“I suppose not, and a good many of us wouldn’t be innocent, would we?”

“Afraid not. You see, the oil business has developed to an importance far beyond everything else down here. When this man, Carranza, went into office, he went in under what they call the Constitution of 1917. It provides that the State is entitled to retain what they call ‘subsoil rights.’ That is, they don’t want to sell oil lands or mines outright, they just lease them.

“Now, if they should decide, and a lot of them want to, that that Constitution is retroactive—and undermines the titles of land that’s already owned by foreign capital, there’d be a lot of influence brought to bear to make trouble.”

“That would affect our mine, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but mines are pretty small potatoes compared to oil. People down here will tell you that the Constitution is merely a matter of form and that if the oil men will go on paying their taxes nothing will happen; but, of course, that sort of assurance doesn’t go far when a man’s putting up his money. If they get a new government down here, and we get a new one at home, the chances are that the United States will demand guarantees of some kind. It’s a bad question, take it any way you like.

“The Mexican says: ‘These oil lands are mine.’ And they are. The American says: ‘What good were they to anybody when you had them?’ None whatever, and the world needs oil, so there you are.”

They rode on for a few minutes in silence. Scott watched, with the mixed pleasure of the horseman and the admiring male, the girl’s graceful figure adapt itself to the jog of the horse. He reflected that there was something very clean-cut and alive about her, from the way her hair sprang in its tight little waves away from her firm white neck, to the quick flash of her dark eyes; there was a vividness and a health about her which appealed strongly to the out-of-doors man.

Nothing could have been further from his idea of a rich man’s daughter; a pampered being, all nerves and affectations, helpless and parasitic. Of course she was spoiled—used to being waited upon a good deal, and with rather a good opinion of herself. One could see that. On the other hand, it did not seem to go very deep; seemed, rather, the sort of thing that might rub off when it came in contact with life. Even the rich sometimes came into contact with life, he reflected, with a feeling of satisfaction. They dodged a good many rough knocks that the poor couldn’t dodge, but something usually came along to even up the score, if nothing else—the old boy with the scythe.

“Mr. Scott, when are you going to take me over to see Casa Grande?” said the object of his meditations, suddenly.

“Me?” Scott turned on her in well simulated surprise. “Thought you didn’t want to go last time we talked about it.”

“Well,” Polly blushed, “I’ve changed my mind. I want to meet the celebrity.”

“Who? Victor Herrick? I don’t think you’ll care much for him if you go over there looking for a celebrity. He’s not that kind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s not the kind that likes to go to pink teas and have a lot of women hanging around him,” explained Scott, promptly. “Not a society woman’s pet. Too good a musician, I guess.”

“You don’t like society people very much, do you?”

“Not much,” candidly. “And I guess they wouldn’t care much for me, so that squares it.”

“I suppose the sort of people you mean by ‘society’ wouldn’t care for you,” said the girl, frankly. “But there are people, you know, even among the rich who have sense enough to know a worth-while man when they meet him.”

It was Scott’s turn to show confusion. “I don’t mean that there aren’t any decent rich folks. I’m not such a blamed idiot as that,” he said. “You, yourself, have a lot more sense than an heiress has any right to,” he added, with a smile.

“Me? I’m not an heiress. Father has a big salary, of course, but we spend every cent of it. We don’t mean to but we always do. Somehow, our expenses crawl up every time the salary crawls. Of course, there’s insurance, but that would go to Mother. You see, they’ve educated both Bob and me well enough so that we can support ourselves; I could be athletic instructor in a girls’ college to-morrow if I wanted to; and Father’s invested a good deal in this mine on Bob’s account. He thinks he’s done his duty by us and I do, too.”

“So do I,” said Scott, soberly. “I don’t believe in these handed-down fortunes—money tied up for generations.”

“I think,” said Polly, shyly, “that you’re a bit of a socialist.”

“So do I—only I’ve never found exactly the brand of socialism that I believe in. Maybe they haven’t discovered it yet. But I do believe that we’ve got to do better by each other than we’re doing now if we’re ever going to make a success of living. Whether it’s got to come by individual reform or by some new system of government, I don’t know, but things have got to improve, and, by gum, I believe they will! We’re too good, all of us, to be wasted the way most of us are.”

He spoke with a fire that Polly had never seen in him before. She had thought him phlegmatic, but here was something temperamental—something that kindled enthusiasm in her. She was too hampered by her own inexperience of life to know what to say to him; she felt helpless in the presence of feelings that she had never had and could not feel sure that she understood; and she feared to say the wrong thing—she, Polly Street, who had always said what she liked to men and let them take it as they chose! It was a queer feeling and she wondered——

“Hold on, what’s that?” Scott stopped his horse suddenly.

“What’s what?” demanded the girl, startled. Then as he did not answer, but continued to stare in the direction of Athens, she cried impatiently: “What are you looking at? Tell me now—this minute!”

Scott took a pair of field-glasses from a case on his saddle. He handed them to the girl.

“Does that look to you like Juan Pachuca’s car down by the store?”

Polly looked. “It does, doesn’t it?” she said. “But it’s too far to be sure. Who do you suppose those men are on horseback?”

“I don’t know,” said Scott, shortly, as he took the glasses and looked again. “But I don’t like the looks of it. Let’s whip up and get to that arroyo that runs back of the camp. We’ll ride the rest of the way in it.”

They descended into the arroyo which was a deep one with sheltering sides that rose above them fully ten feet.

“It doesn’t go all the way,” objected the girl, who was beginning to know the geography of the place already.

“I don’t want it to,” replied Scott. “It turns off and runs at an angle—just above the dining-room. I’m going to leave you and the horses there out of sight.”

“Leave us!”

“You didn’t think I was going to turn tail and run when the boys were being held up, did you?”

Polly’s eyes shone with a mixture of fear and excitement.

“Do you mean it’s a real hold-up?” she gasped.

“Haven’t the least idea, but it sure does look like one, especially if that’s Pachuca, himself, on that sorrel. Then, again, it may be the Federal Government quartering men on us. In either case ladies and horse-flesh are better out of the way.”

“But I’m not afraid,” cried the girl, her teeth chattering with excitement. “At least, I don’t think I am—much. Anyhow, I’ll be lots more scared down here in this hole alone.”

“You won’t be alone; you’ve got two good horses to take care of. Thank the Lord, Hard is out of it—that’s three horses we can save.”

Hard had ridden to Conejo the day before and had not returned.

“I’m going to leave you this.” Scott took his revolver from the holster and handed it to the girl, who took it reluctantly.

“I’m more afraid of it than I am of Juan Pachuca,” she pleaded.

“You’ve no call to be,” was the reply. “Don’t be a baby—brace up and stay here with these horses. They’re not looking for you and they’ll never come down here. These are the two best horses we’ve got and I’m cussed if I’m going to hand ’em over to a bunch of greasers.”

“Oh!” Polly gasped again. No one had ever spoken to her quite like this before. “You can’t go unarmed, can you?”

“Never mind me. You stay here till I come for you. If anybody bothers you, you shoot. Understand?”

“Yes, I do.”

Scott proceeded to climb cautiously out of the arroyo and in a moment was out of Polly’s sight. He looked back once and saw the girl standing where he had left her, holding the reins of the two horses, her eyes big with excitement, watching his every movement. He waved his hand, then turned his back upon her.

“That’s a good youngster,” he said to himself. “Plenty of spunk but knows when to mind. I’m afraid that if I was ten years younger I might make a fool of myself—for she’d never look at me.”

The spot at which he had left the sheltering arroyo was two or three hundred feet from the cabin in which he was living with Hard and Adams. His idea was to steal into the house from the rear, arm himself, and then see what he could do, though, of course, he realized that their small force could do little against Pachuca, who not only had some twenty-five or thirty men of his own, but who could easily count on the Mexicans who worked on the place.

As he walked quickly in the direction of the house, he noticed Pachuca, for he it was on the sorrel horse, giving orders loudly in Spanish to his men who were scattered around the place—many of them down at the corral. He did not see any of his own people, which puzzled him a little. As he entered his cabin and crossed the living-room to go to the bedroom, where he kept an extra gun, he nearly stumbled over the body of a man.

It was Adams, lying in the middle of the room, dead—or had the boy only fainted? Scott rummaged in the cupboard for the whiskey bottle and poured a bit of the liquor down his throat. Jimmy opened his eyes and stared dizzily around. Scott saw that the floor around him was covered with blood.

“What is it, boy? Those hounds shoot you?” he demanded. Adams grinned shakily.

“You’ve hit it, brainy one,” he muttered. “Help me into a chair, Scotty, I ain’t dead, only winged in the left hin’ leg.”

Scott lifted him gently and placed him in the chair, then went into his room and secured the gun. He brought a towel back with him and staunched the flow of blood from the leg with a clumsily fashioned bandage.

“He busted in on us while we were taking our afternoon naps,” said Jimmy, weakly. “I happened to be taking mine in the office as per usual. I saw Pachuca riding up so I grabbed my gun and beat it for the door. They had me covered, about ten of them before I could show my face. They asked for the cash box and when I said we hadn’t one, one of ’em blazed away and hit me in the leg. When I toppled over they made a rush for the office—most of ’em over me.”

“The safe?”

“I thought of that and it occurred to me that I’d better clear out before it struck them that I might know the combination. So while they were enjoying themselves inside, I crawled down here. I hadn’t gone half-way before I heard ’em blow it up. Oh, yes, they got the pay chest all right, all right.”

“Well, what then?” grunted Scott.

“Part of the crowd had gone down to the corral and the rest were down at the store. Just as I crawled in here, I saw Williams come out of the store and get it in the gun arm—the train gang were caught without their guns, and they’ve got ’em all lined up outside the store. They’ve looted the store and the corral and they’ve got all our greasers stirred up to join ’em. Say, there’s no use your mixing in—you can’t do anything.”

“I can spoil Don Juan’s pretty looks, I guess!” snarled Scott. “That’ll be something.”

“Hold on—give me some more of that whiskey before you go. Thanks. Now go and get your fool head shot off if you want to.”

With a growl of rage, Scott flung out of the house. He strode in the direction of the store where the prisoners still stood helplessly. They had seen firearms, dry-goods, canned food, and Williams’ cash box carried out and deposited in the automobile which stood at the side of the store. Now they awaited the next move. Pachuca was evidently gathering his forces for departure. The Athens Mexicans had collected their families, their household goods, and whatever else they could lay their hands on and were ready to follow.

These preparations for a general exodus were the first things to strike Scott as he came out of the cabin. It was exasperating, but what could you expect? There was no knowing what rosy tale Pachuca had told them; more than likely that the American army had crossed the border and that they were striking for their altars and their fires. He saw women, babies, and household goods loaded upon his good horse-flesh and disappearing down the road.

Scott’s blood boiled. His impulse was to shoot Juan Pachuca without warning. He raised his arm and then he paused. One does not shoot men in the back easily unless one is used to doing it. At that moment a Mexican saw him and yelled. Instantly everyone saw him. Pachuca whirled his horse about. It reared and plunged. Its rider laughed loudly.

“Ah, there you are, friend Scott!” he called. “I told you——” He brought his gun from his hip with a sudden twist. The two men fired simultaneously. Scott thought—hoped—that he saw Pachuca waver, but the air was full of smoke and he was dazed. He fired again.

Pachuca’s horse began to pitch violently; it took all its rider’s famous horsemanship to keep in the saddle. At the same moment, two men stole up behind Scott, who was rushing forward, seized him, threw him to the ground, and disarmed him. One of them took his rope and bound the American, while both of them grinned and muttered in Spanish.

By this time, Pachuca had defeated the evident intentions of the sorrel to buck himself through the store window, and uttering a cry dashed off in the direction of the automobile.

“Adios, SeÑor Scott!” he cried, as he went. “Next time you will take a neighbor’s good word, eh?”

“Next time I’ll take a soft-nosed bullet and get you back of the ear, you rotten little half-breed!” yelled Scott, maddened with helplessness and rage, rolling in the dust.

“Marc Scott, ain’t you got any sense? Keep your mouth shut!” screamed Mrs. Van Zandt in terror as they gathered around the prostrate man and untied him while the last of the raiders rode off.

“Did they get everything?” he demanded as he got to his feet.

“All except honor and they didn’t leave enough of that to stick in your eye,” responded Mrs. Van, bitterly. “They got Adams in the leg and Williams in the arm and took off the whole greaser population. Here, wipe your face off with this handkerchief before you rub all that sand in your eyes.”

Scott obeyed meekly.

“Where’s the girl?” demanded Williams.

“Down the arroyo with the horses,” replied Scott. “We saw the outfit in time or Pachuca’d have had her, too.”

“He asked me where she was and I told him she’d gone home,” said Mrs. Van. “I was awful scared Dolores would give me away but I reckon she didn’t hear.”

They stared malevolently at the vanishing auto. Pachuca had turned the sorrel over to another man and was driving the car himself. Suddenly, they saw him stop and give an order. Several of the men dismounted and were laying something along the track. Then with a yell, they all bolted, the auto in the lead, the horsemen following. A few seconds and they had disappeared around a curve in the road.

“Now, what the ——” began Williams, when he was answered—there was a crash, the sight of rocks and sand flying, and a thunderous reverberation.

“The mutts have blown up the track!” burst from the engineer, furiously.

“They would,” replied Scott, sourly. “Want to cut us off from Conejo till they’ve made their getaway! Probably cut the wires, too. Go and see, Miller. If they haven’t, get Morgan and tell him Pachuca’s on the rampage. Did he say what was up? What he was doing this for?” he asked.

“Not him,” said O’Grady, disgustedly. “Bring out your dead—that’s Johnny Pachuca—no flourishes about him.”

“You come in here with me and look at Joe Williams’ arm,” commanded Mrs. Van. “It don’t look to me as if it was broke, do you think so?”

“I’ll see to Adams,” said Scott. “Johnson, you go down to the arroyo and get the girl.” And he went down the street to the cabin.

“Well, did he get everything?” demanded Adams, as Scott entered.

“All he could carry. He left the victrola for you, Jimmy, and the stove for Mrs. Van.”

“Gosh! What did you do with Miss Polly?”

“Left her with the horses in the arroyo.”

“That was smart of you, Scotty. I’ll bet she wanted to come?”

“I’ll bet she did, but she didn’t get to come. Let’s have another look at the leg, Jimmy.”

They bathed it as well as they could. It had stopped bleeding and they bandaged it carefully with another towel.

“I don’t believe the bone’s broke, Jimmy, but I don’t like the looks of it,” said the amateur surgeon. “You need a doctor.”

“There ain’t any except that greaser over at Conejo,” said Adams, gloomily. “Morgan says he’s so dirty he won’t let him touch his kids. I don’t want blood poisoning, you bet. Did they blow up the track?”

Scott nodded. “There’s Johnson,” he exclaimed, looking out of the window. “He’s got the horses but not the girl. Hey, there, Tom, where’s Miss Polly?” he cried as the engineer dismounted and came into the house.

“She wasn’t there, Scotty. I found the horses tied to a branch of a tree that grew out of the side of the arroyo but there wasn’t no sign of the girl anywhere.”

Scott’s face darkened. “She was scared and went further up,” he said. “Did you look?”

“Looked and hollered and then some, but she was clean gone.”

Scott muttered something, flung out of the house and threw himself on his horse. In a moment he was tearing up the road.

“Where’s that ugly devil going?” said Johnson, disgustedly. “Didn’t I tell him she’d gone? Is he going to try to chase Johnny Pachuca into the mountains after her?”

“Gone clean nuts!” remarked Adams, gloomily.

“I knew that when I seen him rolling in the dirt and yelling ‘half-breed,’” replied Johnson. “You might as well poison a Mexican as to call him ‘half-breed.’ According to them they’re all second cousins to the King of Spain. Does your leg hurt much, Jimmy?”

“Well, I’ve had legs that felt better,” said Adams, cheerfully. “Where you going, Tom?” as the long, lank engineer swung out of the room.

“To see the boss get his throat cut,” was the reply. “Pachuca’s got the money, the guns and the girl; it don’t seem very good sense to hand him the whole office force but if the boss says so, here goes.”