look into the tired, pain-worn face of the rancher, "I sure hope you
never have no call to be sorry for this."

"Sorry? I ain't bothering about that. So long, Lew."

But Lew Hervey had suddenly lost his voice. He could only wave his
adieu.



CHAPTER XIV

STRATEGY

Never had Red Perris passed a night of such pleasant dreams. For
never, indeed, had he been so exquisitely flattered as during the
preceding evening when Marianne Jordan kept him after dinner in the
ranchhouse while the other hired men, as was their custom, loitered
to smoke their after-dinner cigarettes in the moist coolness of the
patio. For the building was on the Spanish-Mexican style. The walls
were heavy enough to defy the most biting cold of winter and the most
searching sun in summer. And they marched in a wide circle around
an interior court which was bordered with a clumsy arcade of 'dobe
pillars. By daylight the defects in construction were rather too
apparent. But at night the effect was imposing, almost grand.

But while the cowhands smoked in the patio, the noise of their
laughter and their heavy voices penetrated no louder than the dim
humming of bees to the ear of Red Jim Perris, sitting tête-à-tête with
Marianne in an inner room. And he did not envy the sprawling freedom