“Oh—it couldn’t have been me, of course—eh?” Pearse echoed, his voice a little unsteady. And then, for a long moment, there was no sound but the quick, soft thud of the horses’ hoofs. “We”—Hilda tried to speak in a nice, practical tone—“we’re sensible, aren’t we, Pearse?” “I suppose we are,” Pearse conceded, a bit grudgingly. “And I’ve got to see your people, and—” “Yes, of course,” Hilda broke in nervously. “That’s what I said in my letter. I asked you to come over and have the little talk you spoke of—and make friends with Uncle Hank.” “You’re still thinking that it will be making friends?” Pearse stiffened a bit, and pulled the horses down to a slower pace. “More likely that Pearsall and I will never have anything to do with each other, Hilda; that it’ll have to be you and me—or you and him.” Then, slackening the lines so that the horses went forward faster, “Colonel Marchbanks and Gene Denner fought all over the station platform. Everybody knows now who was at the Alamositas that night, and what girl he was after—everybody but the Marchbankses did know already about Maybelle’s affair with that fellow.” “Oh, but it’s different with us,” Hilda’s voice failed at the end of that statement. She had no words to answer as Pearse asked softly, looking straight ahead, “Are you sure it’s so different?” They were at the gate, turning in to the long avenue of box elders, and she caught at the first little commonplace thing to say, with, “Look at our trees, Pearse. Aren’t they lovely? Haven’t they grown a lot since the last time you saw them? Right over there is the spring at the head of the _asequia_ where you came in that day. You can’t quite see it from here for the mound—Burch used to call it the little mountain when he was a baby—that mound’s over the cyclone cellar.” There wasn’t another word said till Pearse was lifting her down at the steps, and Aunt Val rose from a rocker on the porch to meet them. Miss Van Brunt seemed to like at once this tall, good looking young fellow who had known her brother and her brother’s wife and children. She felt that such a person had background, and background was the thing she was apt to miss in her western acquaintances. Burch came out and said “Hello,” amusingly certain that he perfectly remembered Pearse, and took the visitor up to the room which had been prepared for him. When they came downstairs again, Hilda was waiting for them. “I’m going to show Pearse over the place a bit while it’s still light enough to see things,” she said easily, then in a half-whisper, “Quick, Pearse. Come this way. Around the house. We’ll have to go in by the back. Nobody knows about my cyclone cellar yet.”