"Out here? Oh, yes, indeed!" she replied.

"Like ridin'?"

"I love horses."

Like almost every man who made Sally's acquaintance, he hit upon the
subject best calculated to make her interesting to free-riding, outdoor
Western men.

That he loved a thoroughbred horse himself was plain. He spoke naturally
to Sally with interest, just as I had upon first meeting her, and he
might not have been Jack Blome, for all the indication he gave of the
fact in his talk.

But the look of the man was different. He was a desperado, one of the
dashing, reckless kind--more famous along the Pecos and Rio Grande than
more really desperate men. His attire proclaimed a vanity seldom seen in
any Westerner except of that unusual brand, yet it was neither gaudy or
showy.

One had to be close to Blome to see the silk, the velvet, the gold, the
fine leather. When I envied a man's spurs then they were indeed worth
coveting.

Blome had a short rifle and a gun in saddle-sheaths. My sharp eye,
running over him, caught a row of notches on the bone handle of the big
Colt he packed.

It was then that the marshal, the Ranger in me, went hot under the