“Shouldn’t have been straying so far from its range,” suggested Collins, with a laugh. “But it’s good veal, even if I say it that shouldn’t.” “Thank you,” burlesqued the bandit gravely, with such an ironic touch of convention that Alice smiled. After dinner Leroy produced cigars, and with the permission of Miss Mackenzie the two men smoked while the conversation ran on a topic as impersonal as literature. A criticism of novels and plays written to illustrate the frontier was the line into which the discussion fell, and the girl from the city, listening with a vivid interest, was pleased to find that these two real men talked with point and a sense of dexterous turns. She felt a sort of proud proprietorship in their power, and wished that some of the tailors’ models she had met in society, who held so good a conceit of themselves, might come under the spell of their strong, tolerant virility. Whatever the difference between them, it might be truly said of both that they had lived at first hand and come in touch closely with all the elemental realities. One of them was a romantic villain and the other an unromantic hero, but her pulsing emotions morally condemned one no more than the other. This was the sheer delight of her esthetic sense of fitness, that strong men engaged in a finish fight could rise to so perfect a courtesy that an outsider could not have guessed the antagonism that ran between them, enduring as life. Leroy gave the signal for breaking up by looking at his watch. “Afraid I must say ‘Lights out.’ It’s past eleven. We’ll have to be up and on our way with the hooters. Sleep well, Miss Mackenzie. You don’t need to worry about waking. I’ll have you called in good time. _Buenos noches_.” He held the door for her as she passed out; and, in passing, her eyes rose to meet his. “_Buenos noches, señor;_ I’m sure I shall sleep well to-night,” she said. It had been the day of Alice Mackenzie’ life. Emotions and sensations, surging through her, had trodden on each other’s heels. Woman-like, she welcomed the darkness to analyze and classify the turbid chaos of her mind. She had been swept into sympathy with an outlaw, to give him no worse name. She had felt herself nearer to him than to some honest men she could name who had offered her their love.