The moon floated higher and higher as the night grew old and at length there was a dim lightening in the east which foretold dawn, but Marianne kept on. If she lost the mares it would be very much like losing her last claim to the respect of her father. She could see him, in prospect, shrug his shoulders and roll another cigarette; above all she could see Lew Hervey smile with a suppressed wisdom. Both of them had, from the first, not only disapproved of the long price of the Coles horses, but of their long legs as well and their "damned high heads." She had kept telling herself fiercely that before long, when the mares were used to mountain ways and trails, she would ride one of them against the pick of Hervey's saddle ponies and at the end of a day he would know how much blood counts in horse flesh! But if that chance were lost to her with the mares themselves--she did not know where she could find the courage to go back and face the people at the ranch. Meantime the dawn grew slowly in the east but even when the mountains were huge and black against flaming colors of the horizon sky, there was no breaking of Marianne's gloom. Now and then, hopelessly, she raised her field glasses and swept a segment of the compass. But it was an automatic act, and her own forecast of failure obscured her vision, until at last, saddle-racked, trembling with weariness and grief, she stopped the mare. She was beaten! She had turned the bay towards the home-trail when something subconsciously noted made her glance over her shoulder. And she saw them! She needed no glass to bring them close. Those six small forms moving over the distant hill could be nothing else, but if she doubted, all room for doubt was instantly removed, for in a moment a group of horsemen passed raggedly over the same crest. Hervey had found them, after all! Tears of relief and astonishment streamed down her face. God bless Lew Hervey for this good work! Even the bay seemed to recover her spirit at the sight. She had picked up her head before she felt the rein of the mistress and now she answered the first word by swinging into a brisk gallop that overhauled the others swiftly. How the eyes of Marianne feasted on the reclaimed truants! They danced along gaily, their slender bodies shining with sweat in the light of the early day, and Lady Mary mincing in the lead. A moment later, Marianne was among her cowpunchers. They were stolid as ever but she knew them well enough to understand by the smiles they interchanged, that they were intensely pleased with their work of the night. Then she found herself crying to Hervey: "You're wonderful! Simply wonderful! How could you have followed them so far and found them in the night?" At that, of course, Hervey became exceedingly matter of fact. He spoke as though the explanation were self-evident.