"You will not," said Bostil.

"Let me send some one, then," she entreated.

"Girl, haven't you the nerve to play your own game? Let Creech get his lesson.
He deserves it. . . . An' now, Lucy, I've two more questions to ask."

"Only two?" she queried, archly. "Dad, don't scold me with questions."

"What shall I say to Wetherby for good an' all?"

Lucy's eyes shaded dreamily, and she seemed to look beyond the room, out over
the ranges.

"Tell him to go back to Durango and forget the foolish girl who can care only
for the desert and a horse."

"All right. That is straight talk, like an Indian's. An' now the last
question--what do you want for a birthday present?"

"Oh, of course," she cried, gleefully clapping her hands. "I'd forgotten
that. I'm eighteen!"

"You get that old chest of your mother's. But what from me?"

"Dad, will you give me anything I ask for?"

"Yes, my girl."