“His name is Pearse Masters, Aunt Val, maybe you’d remember that the Masterses were people we met coming out to Texas; and when Mamma got sick, they stopped off in Denver with us and stayed till—stayed there through it all. They were gone before you got there—but perhaps you remember the name.” “Oh, yes, I remember very well,” said Miss Valeria. “Does Mrs. Masters come with him? Are they living in New Mexico now?” “Mr. and Mrs. Masters are both dead; this”—the color deepened in Hilda’s cheeks; her voice wavered a little—“this is their son.” “Oh—a young man?” Miss Valeria went on with her breakfast, murmuring vaguely, “The afternoon train? He’ll be here in time for dinner, then; that’s very nice.” The talk went quite buoyantly after that, Hilda asking questions about things on the ranch—and hardly hearing the answers, Miss Valeria explaining new arrangements in the household matters. Now that there were plenty of servants, this small lady—who had never ceased to be a resident of New York merely sojourning on a Texas Panhandle ranch—took a great deal more interest in the Three Sorrows domestic machinery. It was after breakfast, in the hall, that Uncle Hank and Hilda came together alone. “I’m so glad—” she began, oh, how unnecessarily! One look at her flushed cheeks and glowing eyes would have been enough. “I’m sure Aunt Val’s going to like him. Burch already knows him—though, of course, I don’t suppose he can remember—and now, if you—” “If me,” Hank said gently. “I can’t see why you’re uneasy about me, Pettie. No special reason for it, is there?” “No—yes—Uncle Hank.” Hilda moved on with him to the office, where they could speak together without fear of interruption. “There is a reason; that’s why I’m so glad he’s coming over here—again.” “Again?” Quickly. “Has he ever been at the Sorrers before? Not that I’ve known of.” Hilda’s eyes never left the anxious face that confronted her as she told, at last, the whole story of her hiding Pearse Masters in the cyclone cellar, of the snatched interview during the drive up with the trail-herd. That was easy. She was glad now to share that with Uncle Hank. But when she came to the part over in New Mexico, the dance at Grainger’s, the picnic on Caliente Creek, she found it harder going. Yet, the bare facts of these things too she got before him, tried to express something of what they meant to her, broke off blushing, and finally finished, “So you see, he’s The Boy-On-The-Train that I was always telling you about when I was a little girl, Uncle Hank. And when I hid him here on the Three Sorrows—he wasn’t a cattle thief—but if the sheriff had got him that—” “I see. I see, Pettie.” Hank stood looking down, sorting out this new information. Finally he went on without looking at her: