Nevertheless, despite this elegant raillery, Lanty was enough concerned in the safety of her horse to visit it the next day with a view of bringing it nearer home. She had just stepped into the alder fringe of a dry “run” when she came suddenly upon the figure of a horseman in the “run,” who had been hidden by the alders from the plain beyond and who seemed to be engaged in examining the hoof marks in the dust of the old ford. Something about his figure struck her recollection, and as he looked up quickly she saw it was the owner of the dagger. But he appeared to be lighter of hair and complexion, and was dressed differently, and more like a vaquero. Yet there was the same flash of his teeth as he recognized her, and she knew it was the same man.
Alas for her preparation! Without the knife she could not make that haughty return of it which she had contemplated. And more than that, she was conscious she was blushing! Nevertheless she managed to level her pretty brown eyebrows at him, and said sharply that if he followed her to her home she would return his property at once.
“But I'm in no hurry for it,” he said with a laugh,—the same light laugh and pleasant voice she remembered,—“and I'd rather not come to the house just now. The knife is in good hands, I know, and I'll call for it when I want it! And until then—if it's all the same to you—keep it to yourself,—keep it dark, as dark as the night I lost it!”
“I don't go about blabbing my affairs,” said Lanty indignantly, “and if it hadn't BEEN dark that night you'd have had your ears boxed—you know why!”
The stranger laughed again, waved his hand to Lanty, and galloped away.
Lanty was a little disappointed. The daylight had taken away some of her illusions. He was certainly very good-looking, but not quite as picturesque, mysterious, and thrilling as in the dark! And it was very queer—he certainly did look darker that night! Who was he? And why was he lingering near her? He was different from her neighbors—her admirers. He might be one of those locaters, from the big towns, who prospect the lands, with a view of settling government warrants on them,—they were always so secret until they had found what they wanted. She did not dare to seek information of her friends, for the same reason that she had concealed his existence from her mother,—it would provoke awkward questions; and it was evident that he was trusting to her secrecy, too. The thought thrilled her with a new pride, and was some compensation for the loss of her more intangible romance. It would be mighty fine, when he did call openly for his beautiful knife and declared himself, to have them all know that SHE knew about it all along.
When she reached home, to guard against another such surprise she determined to keep the weapon with her, and, distrusting her pocket, confided it to the cheap little country-made corset which only for the last year had confined her budding figure, and which now, perhaps, heaved with an additional pride. She was quite abstracted during the rest of the day, and paid but little attention to the gossip of the farm lads, who were full of a daring raid, two nights before, by the Mexican gang on the large stock farm of a neighbor. The Vigilant Committee had been baffled; it was even alleged that some of the smaller ranchmen and herders were in league with the gang. It was also believed to be a widespread conspiracy; to have a political complexion in its combination of an alien race with Southwestern filibusters. The legal authorities had been reinforced by special detectives from San Francisco. Lanty seldom troubled herself with these matters; she knew the exaggeration, she suspected the ignorance of her rural neighbors. She roughly referred it, in her own vocabulary, to “jaw,” a peculiarly masculine quality. But later in the evening, when the domestic circle in the sitting-room had been augmented by a neighbor, and Lanty had taken refuge behind her novel as an excuse for silence, Zob Hopper, the enamored swain of the previous evening, burst in with more astounding news. A posse of the sheriff had just passed along the ridge; they had “corraled” part of the gang, and rescued some of the stock. The leader of the gang had escaped, but his capture was inevitable, as the roads were stopped. “All the same, I'm glad to see ye took my advice, Miss Atalanty, and brought in your filly,” he concluded, with an insinuating glance at the young girl.
But “Miss Atalanty,” curling a quarter of an inch of scarlet lip above the edge of her novel, here “allowed” that if his advice or the filly had to be “took,” she didn't know which was worse.
“I wonder ye kin talk to sech peartness, Mr. Hopper,” said Mrs. Foster severely; “she ain't got eyes nor senses for anythin' but that book.”
“Talkin' o' what's to be 'took,'” put in the diplomatic neighbor, “you bet it ain't that Mexican leader! No, sir! he's been 'stopped' before this—and then got clean away all the same! One o' them detectives got him once and disarmed him—but he managed to give them the slip, after all. Why, he's that full o' shifts and disguises thar ain't no spottin' him. He walked right under the constable's nose oncet, and took a drink with the sheriff that was arter him—and the blamed fool never knew it. He kin change even the color of his hair quick as winkin'.”