Hard and Mrs. Conrad stared at each other in whimsical dismay as the other couple rode away. Then they looked at the suitcases carefully tucked away in the brush.

“Not much of a hiding place,” observed Hard, “but it’s better than leaving them in the wagon.”

“And decidedly better than carrying them all the way to Soria’s,” replied Clara. “Safe enough, too. It isn’t once in a coon’s age that anybody travels around these places. Funny, isn’t it, when you think of all the crowded spots there are in the world?”

“It reminds me,” said Hard, with a reminiscent chuckle, “of a yarn. I was in New Mexico on a hunting trip with Joe McArthur—you remember the Boston McArthurs who had a ranch near one of the Apache reservations? Well, we rode up to the agency store to ask old Slade, the trader, about an Indian guide.

“We got him and started out the next day. We were riding up among the pines—great tall fellows, a regular park of them; not a living thing in sight except the birds, not a sound except the river. McArthur and I were riding behind Charley, the guide. We’d been arguing rather aimlessly as to whether an Indian had a sense of humor or not; Joe thought they hadn’t, while I contended that they had.

“The quiet of the place rather got us. McArthur took a silver dollar from his pocket and said: ‘Hard, I believe I could lay this dollar on that stump over there and come back here in a year and find it there.’ Old Charley turned around, his wrinkled face twisted into a grin. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no find him nex’ year. Mr. Slade he get him nex’ morning.’

“Well, Charley got the dollar and McArthur admitted that I had the right of the argument.”

“That sounds to me just like a McArthur of Boston,” said Clara, severely. “An Indian without a sense of humor! Just because they don’t see fit to howl over the fool things a white man howls over, I suppose.” She did not speak again for some time, then she burst out tempestuously:

“Henry, why did you begin talking about Boston? Do you know, I’ve been more lonesome for the dear old place in the last twenty-four hours than ever before? I wonder if seeing you has made me homesick?”

“I hope so,” said Hard. “It’s time for you to go back to Boston, Clara.”

“Perhaps; but I shall come back here. Once this country gets on its feet I can sell for a decent price. There’s going to be a rush to Mexico some day when people find that they can come without risking their lives and their money.”

“Do you think that time is coming soon?”

“I hope it is. This last move looks hopeful. If Obregon can establish a good government, he will. Of course, our people will have to be patient. At any rate, I’m going to risk it.”

“Yes,” smiled Hard, “you would feel that way, of course.”

“Money getting isn’t such an ugly business, Henry, when you risk something. It puts a bit of romance into the thing. I think I rather despise people who make money just by sitting in an office and guessing right.”

“Clara, how old are you? Sixteen?”

“I don’t mind telling you that I’m older than I look, and it’s a wonder to me after the hard knocks I’ve had. Well, do you think you can hobble back to Soria’s?”

“Let’s wait a little longer. I could wish it a little cooler.”

“If you’d wear a sombrero instead of that white thing——”

“Can’t. I’m not built for a sombrero. Makes me look like the villain in a show.”

Clara burst into laughter.

“Henry,” she said, “what an absurd world this is once a human being cuts loose from his original moorings!”

“Yes? It’s an almighty hot world when he cuts loose from a roof and an ice-water tank, I’ve noticed.”

“I’m not thinking of ordinary things—I’m thinking of you and me and Boston,” pursued Clara, firmly.

“Clara, I can stand a good deal, especially from you, but if you insist upon talking about Boston I’m likely to do something that we’ll both regret.”

“I was just thinking that if you and I had stayed in Boston, in our own little niches, as our kind of people usually do, what would we be doing?” went on Clara, meditatively.

“I would be having a gin fizz at the club,” said Hard, pensively, “to be followed possibly by a game of bridge and a dinner—a real, human dinner, not just food—at my brother John’s.”

“If I had stayed where I belonged, or where everybody said I belonged when my father died and the family income disappeared,” said Clara, persistently, “I would be teaching music in a girls’ school, and planning a trip to Italy with a lot of other middle-aged spinsters. Instead of that, I put all that I had into a two years’ study in London and Paris and fell in with a wandering Englishman, married him, and here I am.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t stay where you belonged, Clara, for quite apart from the pleasure of your company, which under sane conditions I find very delightful, I don’t seem to see you in the rÔle of a middle-aged spinster. Still, you might easily have been one. I know some charming girls in Boston who have gone that path.”

“So do I,” soberly. “Some of them so much more charming than some of my married friends that I don’t quite get the idea. Some of Nature’s blunders, I suppose. Well, shall we start?”

“We’d better. I think it’s going to be some walk.”

They plodded along in silence. This time Hard broke it.

“Clara, do you think that youngster is good enough for Marc Scott? You’re clever enough to judge people even on a short acquaintance.”

“Heavens, Henry, what a question!”

“I admit it’s crude. Theoretically, any nice girl confers a tremendous favor on the man she marries merely by so doing; man being inherently vile. But, Clara, honestly, man to man, how many nice girls one knows who would be the deuce to live with!”

Clara’s eyes twinkled. “Henry,” she said, “you’re perfectly right, of course, but man to man, do you think you’ve any right to assume that the ones who aren’t nice are any pleasanter—taken as a steady diet?”

“Well, no, if you put it like that. But, I mean—well—this Polly youngster, of whom by the way I am very fond, I don’t know why, she’s as spoiled as the deuce, has had very little education——”

“She graduated from Wellesley, so she tells me.”

“Truly? How well they cover it up these days! In my youth, you knew when a woman was well educated.”

“And avoided her. That’s why they learned to cover it up.”

“Don’t be trivial. What I mean is this. Scott is an unusual fellow. He’s brought himself up from nothing, with only a boost here and there from someone who recognized his worth. He’s rough and he’s odd, but he has a mind. He will always be a man of importance in his community.”

“I admit all that; but it doesn’t imply that he’s too good for Polly.”

“No, but after all, what does a spoiled society girl of twenty-four know about a worth-while man, anyhow?”

“Oh, my dear Henry, wake up! You aren’t living in the Victorian period. She knows a lot more about everything than you think, and well for her that she does. Girls of to-day may be daring, they may be over confident, they may be hard, but at least they know something of the world outside their own environment. After all, life’s a tricky job for a woman—don’t begrudge her a little folly before she undertakes it.”

“I don’t. I like frivolous girls—in a way; but I don’t like to see a man with a brain marrying a kitten.”

“Polly Street isn’t a kitten. She’s never had to consider anything more serious than a golf course, but she’ll make good when the time comes. She’s shown that since she’s been here. But, Henry, why this sudden interest in match-making? Has he, by any chance, asked your valuable advice?”

“Good Heavens, no!”

“Match-making, you know, belongs to middle age. Young people are too self-centred to bother with it. I wonder if we’re nearly there? I’m dead.”

“Well, my aching feet tell me we are, Clara, but my manly intelligence suggests that if we’ve covered one-third of the distance we’re mighty lucky.”

“That’s about what I thought,” groaned Clara. “How’s your knee?”

“Peevish but possible. Shall we take a rest?”

“Oh dear, yes, and a bite.”

They topped the next rise. It was decidedly a rise and commanded a wide view of the flat part of the country. At a little distance rose a live oak whose low branches offered a slight shelter from the sun. A cooling breeze played about them, kicking up spirals of sand, and a prairie-dog village manifested eager interest in their presence. They ate their sandwiches and Hard returned to the subject of Scott and Polly.

“Do you think—you being a woman and acute in such matters—that he’s asked her yet?” he said.

“No, I don’t; they both look too edgy. He’s going to, however, and she’s going to take him, I think. I’m not sure. She may be flirting.”

“If she flirts with Scott, I’ll have her punished,” declared Hard, indignantly.

“Well, maybe she won’t. She’s a bit of a minx, though, and while she’s young she’s no infant. Some girls have to do the world’s flirting, Henry, because the others won’t—or can’t. It wouldn’t do to have things made too easy for you.”

“They are not,” said Hard, with meaning.

“Well, this isn’t getting to Soria’s.” Clara rose hastily. She looked back over the road. “It looks like people back there—dust flying. Do you suppose it’s more troops?”

Hard stared. “No,” he said, finally, “it’s only the wind.”

“Yes, I guess it is,” assented Clara. “Let’s be moving.”

It was slow going—a lame man and a tired woman—both unused to walking even under favorable circumstances. It seemed to Clara Conrad as she looked ahead at the wearisome stretch of road, as though they made no more progress than a couple of ants crawling up a mountainside.

“Do you think we’ll ever make it?” she said, stopping for a long breath at the top of a small rise.

“We’ve got to,” said Hard, simply, “What else is there to do?”

Clara did not answer but looked longingly back toward the spot in the cottonwoods.

“Don’t play Lot’s wife, Clara; keep on looking forward. It’s our only hope.”

“Lot’s wife always appealed to my sympathies,” said Clara, pensively. “I think she was probably a settled sort of a woman, married to one of these men who like change. It must have irritated her awfully to have to pack up and move when she was so comfortable. Oh, Henry, that’s not wind blowing the dust! It’s men—horsemen!”

“It does look like it.”

“They’re coming this way. I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.” Hard’s voice was anxious. “If we had a bit of shelter——”

They looked anxiously about, but the flatness of the country offered no opportunity for anything larger than a gopher to hide. Trees and bushes, alike too small for shelter, and little rises of land, hard enough to climb but easily visible to anyone on horseback, were all that offered themselves. In the distance an arroyo looked promising, but it was far and the line of riders very near.

“We’ve got to make a break for it, anyhow,” said Hard, at last. “It’s off the road. It’s our only chance; that, and the possibility that they may be troops and in too much of a hurry to stop for the likes of us. Come on.”

Clara sighed and quickened her pace. They left the road and struck across country toward the arroyo.

“I don’t believe they’re troops,” she said. “There aren’t enough of them. Oh, Henry, suppose it’s Angel Gonzales and his men!”

Hard shrugged his shoulders. “They may very well be,” he said. “But we’ll hope they’re not. Let’s be optimistic as long as we have a straw to clutch.”

Clara did not answer. She took another look at the rapidly advancing line and felt, not unreasonably, that the straw was a weak one even for the clutch of an optimist. They dug in, weary as they were, making small progress, but with hopeful eyes bent upon the distant arroyo. At least they were going in a different direction from the riders. Hard limped painfully. His face was set in lines of determination—or was it pain? Clara wondered. She stopped suddenly.

“Henry,” she said, firmly, “this is folly. Those men must have seen us. They’re able to overtake us if they want to, and if they want to do anything to us, they will. We can’t help ourselves. I’m not going another step. I’m going to sit down here and see what happens.” As she spoke, she sat down on a tree stump. Hard laughed ruefully.

“Well, I suppose you’re right,” he said. “They’ve got us, if they want us. We’ll hope they don’t.” He sat down on the ground beside her, feeling very much as though he would never get up again.

So far the horsemen had given no indication of having seen the fugitives. They were fox-trotting along, in twos and threes, for the road was fairly wide. There was no air of discipline about the party, nothing to indicate that it was of a military character. As they came opposite the fugitives, who had struck off the road at a right angle, they stopped, in obedience to a signal from one of the two riding ahead.

“They’ve seen us!” breathed Clara.

“And are wondering whether we’re worth while,” supplemented Hard. “Ah, here they come!”

The result of the conference reached, the two leaders of the party followed by half a dozen men struck off toward Clara and Hard. The others waited in the road. They came at a good gait, their badly fed horses responding to the ugly spur with a nervous speed which covered the hilly space in seconds where Hard and Clara had taken minutes to crawl.

“I’m afraid they’re not troops,” observed Hard. “They wouldn’t take all that trouble for a pair of strangers. It’s Angel, or someone of his sort. Well?”

“Well?” Clara smiled bravely. “There’s nothing to do but wait. Better let me talk to them; I have the language better in hand, I think. If it’s money they want we may as well give them what we have to buy our freedom.”

“By all means.” Hard grinned. “I’ve got ten dollars. It won’t buy much—even of freedom, I’m afraid.”

“Most of mine is in express checks, tucked away in a sheltered spot,” said Clara, frowning. “I don’t believe they’d want them—Pachuca didn’t. However, I have a little to offer.” She handed him her handbag.

Angel Gonzales, closely followed by Porfirio Cortes, drew up beside the odd-looking couple sitting by the wayside. The other men lingered within hearing. Angel opened the conversation in his native tongue.

“Who are you and where are you going?” he demanded, his shifty black eyes gleaming from his weather-beaten face.

“And why?” growled Cortes. “When the country is upset, the place for foreigners is at home.”

“Yes, we know it is,” said Clara, placatingly. “But your country, you know, is almost always upset. This gentleman, SeÑor Hard, is connected with the mining company at Athens. I am from the South, and on my way to the border.”

“Where are your horses?” said Angel, suspiciously.

“A young man named Juan Pachuca raided the ranch where we were visiting and took all the livestock,” replied Clara, eyeing the swarthy fellow quietly.

There was a hurried colloquy between the two Mexicans and a laugh from Gonzales.

“You are not going toward Athens,” he observed, drily.

“No, we’re not,” replied Hard. “We’re heading for the Soria place just at present with the idea of borrowing their burro to ride and tie.” He had risen and was leaning heavily on his well leg.

“Humph! It is a long walk to the Soria place,” grunted Angel. “You’re lame?”

“Yes, temporarily.”

“Humph!” Angel turned to his men. “Here, two of you double up and give these people horses,” he commanded curtly. Apparently, he was one of those leaders whose word is law, for two of the men rolled their horses and led them toward the two Americans who stared at them in astonishment.

“We go by Soria’s,” said Angel, gruffly. “We will take you that far.”

“Thank you, but I think——” Clara began weakly, but stopped as she felt herself being seized by one of the men and lifted roughly to the saddle of a wiry little gray horse which was dancing around in a most disconcerting manner. It was a time for self-preservation and not for protest. She grasped the pommel desperately with one hand and the reins with the other, while her feet were being thrust into the straps of the stirrups—the stirrups themselves being too long.

She was badly scared, for the horse gave every indication of being unmanageable; and very miserable, for her skirt pulled in a most uncomfortable and unsightly fashion. There was nothing to do, however, but to make the best of it; for having helped her mount, the man who did so climbed up back of one of his fellows and abandoned her to her fate. Hard, in the meantime, had mounted another rough-looking but more conventionally disposed beast, and the procession started back to the road, the two Americans side by side, surrounded by the Mexicans; Angel Gonzales leading, and Porfirio Cortes bringing up the rear.

“It may be a friendly lift, but it looks more like a case of abduction,” said Hard, wrathfully. “Can you hold that brute, Clara?”

“I hope so,” she said, her lips a bit white. “I think the poor thing is as scared as I am; probably never saw skirts before in his life.”

“Don’t try to hold him too tight. He’s probably got a tender mouth, judging from the way he fidgets.”

“Well, I suppose he has, but if I don’t hold him, he’s going to land me over somewhere in those foothills,” said Clara, faintly. “He’s got the most awful little rack I ever rode. Henry, do you suppose that fellow is Angel Gonzales?”

“Can’t say. He’s an ugly-looking ruffian whoever he is.”

“Hush, here he comes! He may understand English,” shivered Clara.

Angel grinned as he came back to them. “The seÑorita does not ride very well,” he said, mockingly. Clara did not reply.

“I suppose,” she reflected, with a gleam of humor, “that I ought to be grateful to be taken for a ‘seÑorita,’ but how can I be grateful for anything when I’m being rattled to pieces?”

Angel joined himself to them and they rode three abreast. He began to ask questions; questions which plainly were designed to inform him as to the financial standing of his guests or his prisoners whichever he chose to make them.

“He’s as persistent as a society reporter,” growled Hard, under his breath, as Angel relinquished his place to one of his men and fell back to ride with Cortes. “It’s a case of ransom, all right.”

“Shall we make a break for it?” whispered Clara. “If I let this thing go he’ll be over in the foothills before you can whistle.”

“No, they’d shoot. Better not risk it.”

“But, Henry, I can’t stand it! And I look so! I never was so altogether wretched in all my life,” groaned Clara.

“Be patient, that’s a good girl, until we see what they’re going to do.”

“If that devil’s face is any index to his character, he’s going to do something awful.”

Angel Gonzales, in fact, was justifying Clara’s opinion of him.

“The woman has money and property, and so, I think, has he,” he said to Cortes. “If they have money, they have friends, and friends will pay, eh?”

“Sometimes,” admitted Cortes. “But we are in a hurry, amigo. If Pachuca has come this far, he means business. We had better be on our way to meet him.”

“Yes, that’s so. Our horses are not strong enough to carry double, either. We’ll leave the Americanos with Manuel Soria and pay him to keep them for a few days until we know what we want to do with them, eh?”

“Not bad,” agreed Cortes. “Manuel is a good deal of a fool but his woman is smart. Give her a gun and she will know how to use it. She will do it for me because I make love to her now and then,” he added, with something which in a civilized being would pass for a simper.

“Humph, she’d do it for me because I’ll pay her some good money and promise her more,” said the unsympathetic Gonzales.

By this time they had reached the Soria cabin, much to Clara’s relief, and the party dismounted. The cabin door was closed, and Angel, who evidently wasted no time on the little courtesies of life, raised his pistol and fired into it. Clara caught her breath in horror.

“Those babies!” she gasped, clutching Hard.

“I don’t believe they’re in there,” he whispered. “I don’t see a sign of life—not even the burro.”

“Henry, they’ve gone to town to spend the money that Mr. Scott gave them this morning!”

“That’s it. They’ve taken the burro along to bring home the supplies. Don’t say anything; let them find it out. It’s not our funeral.”

It was soon apparent that the Soria family had gone—root and branch. There was no response either to Angel’s rude salutation or to the search which followed.

“They’re in a hole,” chuckled Hard, shrewdly. “I’ll bet you a dollar that they meant to leave us here and pay the Sorias to hold us. Now, they’ve either got to take us along or leave a guard for us, which is what they’ll probably do.”

“You don’t think there’s any chance of his letting us go?”

“Does he look like a chap who lets anything get away from him? Well, I’m glad he’s worried, anyhow.”

Angel Gonzales was worried, no mistake about that. The Sorias had upset his plans exceedingly. He did not want to burden himself with prisoners; his horses, fed only on the scant growth of the land, were in no condition to carry double. He did not want to leave any of his men behind, because he expected to need every one of them in his proposed campaign. On the other hand, he hated to give up the dazzling prospect of a ransom. He had never played the ransom game, but he knew the ropes and he longed to try.

“Who’s that coming up the road?” demanded Cortes, breaking off a dialogue with his chief.

A man—or, as it developed at closer range—a boy, a very ragged boy, riding a sweating horse, was tearing madly in their direction. Boylike, he pulled his poor beast to its haunches and gave what was intended for a military salute as he saw the redoubtable Gonzales.

“Well, what’s the matter? Who are you?” demanded that gentleman, unencouragingly.

“SeÑor Juan Pachuca——” gasped the panting messenger, “he sends me to say to Captain Gonzales to make speed. He waits—at his rancho. He has news of the revolution,” finished the boy, proudly.

“News! Humph, is that all he’s got?” demanded Angel, promptly.

“Men, and horses and plunder—oh, much plunder!” The boy’s eyes shone.

“So? That’s better, eh, Cortes? Shall we go, or——”

“SeÑor Pachuca says to make speed. Much speed,” reiterated the messenger. “The troops went South only last night.”

“We had better go,” said Cortes, eagerly. “We can make the rancho with hard riding by morning. That is, unless you burden yourself with those!” he gestured scornfully toward the two Americans.

Angel hesitated. Like Scott, he hated changing his mind. Also, the ransom loomed large; and he liked the woman’s looks—liked her manner of talk. With her dark hair and eyes, and her soft voice, she was like one of his own people——only much more charming, he reflected, with a gleam of the eye.

“SeÑor Pachuca says——”

“The devil with SeÑor Pachuca!” exploded Angel, menacingly. “Go back and tell him——” But the messenger had already gone. His horse’s feet were pattering down the side of the hill at a rate which argued panic in its rider. A laugh rose from the men, and Angel, guffawing himself, sent a parting bullet over the boy’s head.

“Cheerful man, isn’t he?” muttered Hard. “Never mind, Clara, he didn’t hit the boy. It’s evidently only his little joke.”

“Monster!” Clara’s black eyes snapped.

Apparently the little joke had cleared Angel’s mental atmosphere, for without further explanation, he turned and with a rough: “Get on your horses—we’ll go!” swung onto his mount. Cortes, with a grin of relief, passed the word on:

“To horse!” And in a second the party was mounted. Hard and Clara stood watching, ignorant of what part they were to play in this new move. No attempt was made to mount them, which was in itself encouraging, nor did there seem to have been anyone detailed to stay and guard them. There was another confab between Gonzales and Cortes, which resulted in the latter’s coming toward the two Americans and saying, gruffly:

“Captain Gonzales regrets that he cannot escort you further but he is called suddenly to the front.” There was a pause, then, with an impudent grin, he continued, “Of course you know that in time of war, all alien property is confiscate? You will give me what money you have.”

“Oh, yes, give it to him, Henry, please!” Clara’s voice was eager. She pressed her little handbag into Cortes’ willing hand. Hard shrugged his shoulders.

“All right, old man, it’s not much, and if I thought you’d buy a good feed for those horses of yours, I’d hand it over with my blessing. As it is—I hand it over.”

Cortes took the money very much as a conductor collects his fares——with no comment but a ready hand. He also took a diamond ring which Clara had thoughtlessly put in the bag for safe keeping and the watch which Hard carried. Then without further words, he swung his horse around and at a command from Gonzales, the whole crowd swept furiously down the hill.

“Henry, they’ve gone! Actually gone—and taken that vile gray horse with them!” gasped Clara, faintly.

“It looks like it,” responded Hard. “But unless I’m a lot mistaken, they didn’t mean to go until that boy came with his message.”

“Well, blessings on the head of Juan Pachuca who sent him!” murmured Clara, wearily, as she started for the cabin.

“Do you want to stay outside or go in?” asked Hard, pulling a chair forward on the veranda.

“Outside, please, as long as we can stand it,” said Clara, with a little shiver. “I don’t believe I’d care for Grandmother Soria’s housekeeping.” She peeped into the family olla hanging on the side of the house. It was full. “Oh, well, Henry, things might have been worse,” she smiled as she sank into the chair.

“You can bet your dear life they might,” replied Henry, with a glance in the direction taken by Angel Gonzales.

“See if they’ve left anything to eat—anything that looks fairly clean.”

Hard emerged a few moments later empty-handed.

“Not a thing,” he said. “We evidently arrived at the psychological moment for this little family. That ten dollars Scott gave them will tide them over till Carlotta finds another beau.”

“But wasn’t there anything to eat?”

“Not a bone. Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was a cafeteria compared to Grandmother Soria’s. Draw in your belt and forget it.”

“Why did we eat so much this afternoon? They left us the biggest part of the luncheon. Henry, we are pigs,” moaned Clara, wanly.

“I know. We’re not the sort to be cast on a desert isle, I’m afraid. If the Sorias get back to-night——”

“They won’t. They’ll stay and make a night of it.”

“Perhaps the hungry feeling will wear off after a while,” said Hard, hopefully.

“I wonder? I’ve often thought I’d like to try a fast. One hears of people doing it and having such odd and fascinating sensations,” said Clara, thoughtfully.

“My sensations are odd,” replied Hard, “but they are distinctly not fascinating.”

They sat quietly for a while, watching the clouds hovering over the mountains, sometimes over the peaks, sometimes nestling in fleecy patches half-way up.

“The trail they took crosses about where that gap in the mountains is,” said Clara. “Under that first cloud, so Mr. Scott said.”

“Pretty high.”

“Yes, they’ll have to do some climbing.” Clara sighed softly. Hard felt an unreasonable desire, almost an angry desire to take her in his arms. It was a feeling unlike him, usually so moderate in his emotions.

“Clara,” he said, softly, “were you thinking of him when you sighed?”

Clara started. “Him!” she echoed, helplessly.

“Yes, Dick Conrad.”

“Not exactly, Henry. I was thinking of that terrible trip we took through the mountains—yes, I was in a way thinking of Dick.”

“You were very happy together, weren’t you? You were awfully in love with him, I mean. I’m not being impertinent, am I, Clara? You know I don’t intend to be.”

“No, Henry, I understand. I don’t believe I’m the kind of woman who falls in love—at least, in the way most people mean. There’s nothing very violent about me except once in a while when I get to singing something which takes hold of me pretty hard.

“Richard and I had a rather exciting little love affair, then after a while we both began to realize that we weren’t very romantic—in regard to people. He was passionately devoted to adventure of every kind, and I had a way of putting my best into music. I didn’t feel heart-broken when I found out that we really weren’t anything more than good friends and neither did he.

“I’d cheerfully give all I’ve got to bring Dick back; I get lonesome for him—awfully. And yet, that isn’t exactly the sort of thing that the average person means by ‘love,’ is it?”

“It would have made me very happy once to know that you cared that much for me,” answered Hard, bitterly.

“I did. I always did, Henry. Only we were—so near, so much a part of each other—like cousins. I called it friendship instead of love,” cried Clara, warmly.

“What difference does it make what you call it? Two people like to be together, seem to fit into one another’s lives, isn’t that love?”

Clara smiled. “It’s not the kind of love that Polly Street will give the man she marries,” she said. “You know that as well as I. And it’s not a matter of years, it’s temperament. An actress told me once that when it came to a question of comparison between her married life and her stage life, she could say instantly that it was her stage life that had meant the most to her. She was happily married, too. I’m a bit like her. I can get more downright exaltation over my music when it goes right than I ever got out of any love affair. I think my talent is for friendship rather than for love.”

“Clara,” Hard’s voice shook, “I tell you, you wrong yourself. Neither you nor that woman were happily married if—oh, I don’t want to be maudlin——”

“Bless your heart, Henry, you couldn’t be, any more than I could. Perhaps it’s the New England conscience——”

“I haven’t a New England conscience,” replied Hard. “My conscience is as elastic and pleasantly disposed as an Irishman’s. Bunker Hill casts no blight upon me.”

“Henry, this is all very nice; but I’m dying of hunger.”

“Will you be afraid to stay here if I go back to Casa Grande and fetch you something?”

“Wild horses couldn’t hold me in this God-forsaken spot without you, Henry! Don’t think of it. I—I’ll go with you, though.”

“You can’t walk it.”

“Then I’ll die on the road. But how about your knee?” She stopped in discouragement.

“What’s a knee or two when you’re starving to death?” demanded Hard, with decision. “Come on, let’s start before I get any stiffer.”

They started out again, through the half darkness; walking slowly, for Hard limped painfully. He had helped himself to a stout staff which he found on the Soria veranda and which gave him some assistance. They were very silent; Hard, because his mind was still running on Clara’s words, Clara, because she was honestly puzzled over the situation, and her own feelings.

She watched the tall, thin figure, limping along by her side, and again the old memories came back, as they had the night before in the darkness; memories of the days when he and she had played at love.

“I wasn’t in love with him, and yet, seeing him again, after all these years, it seems as though I must have been,” she thought, gently. “It’s friendship, and yet it’s more than friendship. It’s going to hurt dreadfully to go away again.”

“Clara, one more word before we drop the subject; because I will drop it if it troubles you.” Hard’s voice came quietly through the darkness. “Don’t let us mistake each other again. I’ve tortured myself for fifteen years, wondering whether I should have let you go as I did, or have tried to hold you. Do you think, with fifteen years behind us, that we made a mistake?”

Clara’s voice trembled as she answered: “No, Henry, I don’t. We were too young to understand each other. We needed experience—at least, I did. I don’t know,” she added, with a shadow of a laugh, “whether it’s the romantic situation, my enfeebled condition, or your noble heroism, but I never felt more like being in love with you than I do this minute.”

“Honestly, Clara?”

“Honestly, Henry. If you give out on the road I shall try to emulate that husky woman in history who carried her husband on her back, do you remember?” Then, suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. “Henry, you’ve been awfully patient with me. If you really want to embark on the seas of matrimony with such a shaky thing as I am——”

“Clara, I never thought it would come about like this or I would have smashed this cussed knee ages ago! My dearest girl, my face is dirty and yours is dirtier, but I’m going to kiss you, and then we’ll take another whack at hobbling to Casa Grande.”

The ranch-house stood dark and uninviting except for the dim light of the fire which shone through the broken windows of the living-room, but the sound of the piano came to their ears as they neared it.

“He’s composing,” said Clara, softly.

“Yes, he would be,” said Hard, unsympathetically. “They always do work it off that way, don’t they?”

“Work what off?” demanded Clara, instantly.

“Anything that happens to them,” said Hard, cheerfully. “You artistic fellows are queer, you know, Clara. Don’t try to wriggle out of it.”

“I shan’t,” replied Clara, promptly. “But let me warn you, my lad, you haven’t made me want to give up my music yet. I’m still going back to have a try at it.”

“Bully for you! Of course you are. And I’m going with you, either to help you do it, or to make you fall in love with me so deeply that you’ll want to give it up.”

Clara laughed softly and laid her hand on his arm. “Henry, if you can do that, I’ll be the happiest woman in the world. Please try!”