unevenly, the doorway spewed forth three fat squaws and some naked
papooses who fled shrieking into the brush behind the willows.




CHAPTER FOUR

MARY V TO THE RESCUE

Mary V Selmer was a young woman of quick impulses, a complete disdain
for consequences as yet unseen, and a disposition to have her own way,
to override obstacles man-made or sent by fate to thwart her desires.
Ask any man on the Rolling R Ranch, where Mary V was born; they will
bear witness that this is true.

Mary V had fired the first gun in the battle of wills. She had told
Johnny Jewel that she would expect him to fly straight to the ranch--if
Johnny loved her. Mary V did not mean to seem dictatorial; she merely
wanted Johnny to come back to the Rolling R, and she took what seemed
to her to be the surest means of bringing him. So, serenely sure of
Johnny's love, she had no misgivings when the sun went down and those
wonderful, opal tints of the afterglow filled all the sky.

Johnny would be hungry, of course. She wheedled Bedelia, the cook,
into letting her keep the veal roast hot in the oven of the gasoline
range. She herself spread one of mommie's cherished lunch cloths on
Bedelia's little square table in the kitchen alcove, where she and
Johnny could be alone while he ate. She dipped generously into the
newest preserves and filled a glass dish full for him. She raided the