more with a voice broken by excitement. After that, there was the
saddling to be done and her fingers stumbled and stuttered over the
straps so that when at last she led the bay out and swung up to the
saddle there was no sound or sight of the cowpunchers. But a young moon
was edging above the eastern mountains and by that light, now only an
illusory haze, she hoped to gain sight of her men.

Down the road she jockeyed the mare at the top of her pace with the
barbed wire running in three dim streaks of light on either side until
at last she struck the edge of the desert. The moon was now well above
the horizon and the sands rolled in dun levels and black hollows over
which she could peer for a considerable distance. Still there was no
sight of her cowpunchers and this was a matter of small wonder, for a
ten minute start had sent them far away ahead of her.

It would never do to push ahead with a blind energy. Already the bay was
beginning to feel the run, and Marianne reluctantly drew down to the
long lope which is the favorite gait of the cowpony. At this pace she
rocked on over mile after mile of desert through the moonhaze, but never
a token of the cowpunchers came on her. Twice she was on the verge of
turning back; twice she shook her head and urged the mare on again. Hour
upon hour had slipped by her. Perhaps Hervey long since had given up the
chase and turned towards the ranch. In the meantime, so much alike was
all the ground she covered that she seemed to be riding on a treadmill
but yet she could not return.

The moon floated higher and higher as the night grew old and at length
there was a dim lightening in the east which foretold dawn, but Marianne
kept on. If she lost the mares it would be very much like losing her
last claim to the respect of her father. She could see him, in prospect,