to shapelessness and almost to death, the mystery might have been
cleared. But Marianne could not refer to that terrible memory. All she
could say was that Alcatraz must be killed--at once! And she said it
with her eyes on fire with detestation.

Indeed, that touch of angry passion in her was the flower of Hermes to
Red Jim, keeping him from complete infatuation when she sang to him,
playing her own lightly-touched accompaniment at the piano. He had
never been entertained like this before. And when a girl sang a love
ballad and at the same time looked at him with eyes at once serious
and laughing, he had to set his teeth and shake himself to keep from
taking the words of the poet too literally. Perhaps Marianne was going
a little farther than she intended. But after all, every good woman
has a tremendous desire to make men happy, and handsome Jim Perris
with his straight, steady eyes and his free laughter was such a
pleasant fellow to work with that Marianne quite forgot moderation.

And before the evening was over, Jim had come within a hair's breadth
of plunging over the cliff and confessing his admiration in terms so
outright that Marianne would have closed up her charming gaiety as a
flower closes up its beauty and fragrance at the first warning chill
of night. A dozen times Red Perris came to this alarming point, but he
was always saved by remembering that this delightful girl had brought
him here for the purpose of--killing a horse. And that memory chilled
Jim to the very core of his manly heart.

Of course he knew that wild-running stallions who steal saddle stock
must be cleared from a range, and by shooting if necessary. He would
have received such an order from a man and never thought the less of
him, but the command was too stern for the smiling lips of Marianne.