"But you will consider my proposition of marriage?"

Patty's honest gaze encountered the appraising glint in the coot grey
eyes of the foppish scape-grace before her. She lowered her own eys
quickly to hid a hunted look in their dark depths as she answered:

"Sir, after the week of races, you shall have your answer."

"And then I shall give up my present means of gaining a livelihood, and,
repairing to San Francisco, shall enter into a profession more fitting
the social station of the lady who is to become my wife." He bowed
deeply and withdrew, leaving Patty with a sad face and tearfilled eyes.

At last she straightened her tall figure resolutely. "I must not give
way to tears. I can not! I will not! There must be some way to pay my
father's debts beside this extremity, to which death is almost
preferable. There is still a week's time. A week - only a week." Panic
overwhelmed her, and when someone gently took her hand, she cried aloud
in terror.

"Why, Sweetheart, do I frighten you so? I waited long upon the mesa near
the speed-track at the spot we had agreed upon, and when you did not
come I fared forth to meet you."

"Eric, it is Saul again. What can I do?"

"Dear, I have about $2000 which I am resolved to play on the races. I
will win. I must. Old Irish Mike has brought over his whole stableful of
saddle horses and I was raised in Kentucky. Do not despair, we shall