"Well, driving around the boulevard with your friends is one thing, and around this sort of country with a strange Mexican is another." Scott paused at the sight of the girl's penitent face, and changed the subject. "As for your brother, we had a letter from him to-night saying that he and the bride had gone East. The directors sent for him, so they started pronto. I reckon Miss Emma's folks coaxed them to stay in Douglas a few days after the wedding--we had expected them here before this." "But how did you know----" Scott cleared his throat nervously. "Well, you see, he wrote me to read all his mail----" he stopped, abruptly. "Go on, Romeo!" "I see. You opened my letter and found out that I was coming, and came to meet me. I am very much obliged to you." The words were pleasant enough but the tone was cool. "She's on the trail," Scott thought, disconsolately. "She's running over in her mind what she said in that letter, and when she remembers, it's going to be a good idea to get home as soon as possible." After this, the silence was extremely marked. Scott, feeling the discomfort of it, continued: "It's too bad for you to have had this long trip and then miss your brother after all, but I guess he'll be back soon, the way things are looking." More silence, but Scott was not going to be scared out of his good intentions. "I reckon we can make you pretty comfortable till he comes. We've got a mighty pleasant lady running the boarding-house just now and she'll be glad enough to have another white woman on the place." The silence still continuing, he gave up. "Hang it, if she won't talk, she won't," he thought. Then as he turned to tuck in a flying end of robe he saw the girl's face. "Great guns, she's asleep--poor kid!" The end of a far from perfect day had come for Polly Street, and even an uncomfortable seat with a hard back and the joltings of a rough road had failed to keep her awake. She was asleep, sitting up, her head drooping, her body relaxed. In a few seconds she would be leaning comfortably on the broad shoulder next her. Without interrupting the team's even trot, Scott leaned down, fished another blanket from under the seat and arranged it on the back of the seat between them just in time to receive Polly's sleepy head, so that she rested half on the blanket, and half on his own steady bulk for the rest of the trip. "Poor youngster, she has had a day of it," the man said softly, as he arranged the blanket carefully around her. "And, by gum, I'll bet she hasn't had a mouthful to eat since noon! Well, women have endurance, I'll say they have. Built like Angora kittens and with the constitutions of beef critters. Go on, Romeo--I don't want her fainting with hunger on my hands, she's mad enough at me now." CHAPTER V POLLY ARRIVES