"Nothing. Do you think I'd tell her, and have her buy them up as she has
my other relations? Do you suppose I don't know that I've been bought up
like a nigger?"
She looked indignant, compressing her delicate little nostrils, and yet,
somehow, Clarence had the same singular impression that she was only
acting.
The calling of a far-off voice came faintly through the wood.
"That's Mary, looking for me," said Susy composedly. "You must go, now,
Clarence. Quick! Remember what I said,--and don't breathe a word of
this. Good-by."
But Clarence was standing still, breathless, hopelessly disturbed, and
irresolute. Then he turned away mechanically towards the trail.
"Well, Clarence?"
She was looking at him half reproachfully, half coquettishly, with
smiling, parted lips. He hastened to forget himself and his troubles
upon them twice and thrice. Then she quickly disengaged herself,
whispered, "Go, now," and, as Mary's call was repeated, Clarence heard
her voice, high and clear, answering, "Here, dear," as he was plunging
into the thicket.
He had scarcely reached the madrono tree again and remounted his horse,
before he heard the sound of hoofs approaching from the road. In
his present uneasiness he did not care to be discovered so near the
rendezvous, and drew back into the shadow until the horseman should
pass. It was Peyton, with a somewhat disturbed face, riding rapidly.
Still less was he inclined to join or immediately follow him, but he was
relieved when his host, instead of taking the direct road to the rancho,
through the wild oats, turned off in the direction of the corral.
A moment later Clarence wheeled into the direct road, and presently
found himself in the long afternoon shadows through the thickest of the
grain. He was riding slowly, immersed in thought, when he was suddenly
startled by a hissing noise at his ear, and what seemed to be the
uncoiling stroke of a leaping serpent at his side. Instinctively he
threw himself forward on his horse's neck, and as the animal shied
into the grain, felt the crawling scrape and jerk of a horsehair lariat
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