At eleven the moon came up, and rising out of the prairie simultaneously with the golden disk, came Shady, riding alone. A rapid fire of questions greeted him as he came up with the mail. "Left the young fella at Kooch's," he explained briefly. "What was the matter?" asked Blue Bonnet anxiously. "Well, ye see--it was this way,--" Shady paused and then stood awkwardly shifting his sombrero from hand to hand. Blue Bonnet guessed instantly that Alec had sworn the cowboy to secrecy concerning the real reason for his non-appearance, and she refrained from further questioning. But her grandmother took alarm. "Is he hurt--or ill?" Mrs. Clyde asked quickly. For a moment Shady avoided her eyes, then resolutely squaring his shoulders he lied boldly: "No, Senora,--the mare went lame on him. He'll be over in the morning." Mrs. Clyde drew a quick breath of relief; but Blue Bonnet was not so easily reassured. That Kooch had a dozen horses which Alec might have ridden if Strawberry was really disabled, was something her grandmother did not know; but the little Texan, used all her life to the easy give and take of ranch life, understood at once that Alec's real reason for staying at the Dutchman's was quite different from the one Shady had so glibly given. She knew better, however, than to press the cowboy, and let him go off to the cook-house without attempting to get at the truth. "Grammy Kooch will take good care of him," said Uncle Joe; and with her fears thus set at rest, Mrs. Clyde proposed an adjournment to the house to read their letters. The next morning Blue Bonnet was up before any one else in the house was stirring, and, dressing without arousing any of the other occupants of the nursery, she stole out of the house and made her way to the stable. Some of the Mexicans were already up, feeding the stock and doing the "chores," and one of them saddled Firefly. None of them wondered at Blue Bonnet's early appearance, for since her infancy she had ridden whenever the fancy took her, and now as she dashed out of the corral with Don and Solomon racing madly after her, the men grinned with satisfaction that the Senorita had returned to the ranch unchanged. As she neared the Kooch ranch she saw a solitary horseman emerging from the gate. He was not looking towards her, and after a moment's scrutiny she began to whistle "All the Blue Bonnets." With a start of surprise Alec glanced up the road and at once galloped towards her. "Is it really you?" he asked, hardly believing his eyes. "Nae ither!" she laughed, turning Firefly and falling in with the strawberry mare--whose four legs, she noted, were as sound as ever. "Well, you are an early bird."