“You dare!” she panted.

Her quirt rose and fell, the lash burning his wrist like a band of fire. With a furious oath he dropped his hand from the rein. Like a flash she was off, had dug her heels home, and was galloping into the moonlight recklessly as fast as she could send forward her pony. Stark terror had her by the throat. The fear of him flooded her whole being. Not till the drumming hoofs had carried her far did other emotions move her.

She was furious with him, and with herself for having been imposed upon by him. His beauty, his grace, his debonair manner—they were all hateful to her now. She had thought him a god among men, and he was of common clay. It was her vanity that was wounded, not her heart. She scourged herself because she had been so easily deceived, because 140 she had let herself become a victim of his good looks and his impudence. For that she had let him kiss her—yes, and had returned his kiss—she was heartily contemptuous of herself. Always she had held herself with an instinctive pride, but in her passion of abandonment the tears confessed now that this pride had been humbled to the dust.

This gusty weather of the spirit, now of chastened pride and now of bitter anger, carried her even through the group of live-oaks which looked down upon the silent houses of the ranch, lying in a sea of splendid moon-beat. She was so much less confident of herself than usual that she made up her mind to tell her father the whole story of the hold-up and of what this man had threatened.

This resolution comforted her, and it was with something approaching calmness that she rode past the corral fence and swung from the saddle in front of the house.

141

CHAPTER X

JACK GOES TO THE HEAD OF THE CLASS

She trailed the bridle reins, went up the porch steps, and drew off her gauntlets. Her hand was outstretched to open the door when her gaze fell upon a large bill tacked to the wall. Swiftly she read it through, and, having read it, remained in suspended motion. For the first time she fully realized the danger and the penalty that confronted her.