How dared he take her for granted? But what a masterly way of wooing for the right man! What idiotic folly if he had been the wrong one! Was he, then, the right one? She questioned herself closely, but came to no more definite answer than this—that her heart went glad with a sweet joy to know he wanted to marry her. She resolved to put him from her mind, and in this resolve she fell at last into smiling sleep. CHAPTER XIX. A VILLON OF THE DESERT When Alice Mackenzie looked back in after years upon the incidents connected with that ride to the Rocking Chair, it was always with a kind of glorified pride in her villain-hero. He had his moments, had this twentieth-century Villon, when he represented not unworthily the divinity in man; and this day held more than one of them. Since he was what he was, it also held as many of his black moods. The start was delayed, owing to a cause Leroy had not foreseen. When York went, sleepy-eyed, to the corral to saddle the ponies, he found the bars into the pasture let down, and the whole _remuda_ kicking up its heels in a paddock large as a goodsized city. The result was that it took two hours to run up the bunch of ponies and another half-hour to cut out, rope, and saddle the three that were wanted. Throughout the process Reilly sat on the fence and scowled. Leroy, making an end of slapping on and cinching the last saddle, wheeled suddenly on the Irishman. “What’s the matter, Reilly?” “Was I saying anything was the matter?” “You’ve been looking it right hard. Ain’t you man enough to say it instead of playing dirty little three-for-a-cent tricks—like letting down the corral-bars?” Reilly flung a look at Neil that plainly demanded support, and then descended with truculent defiance from the fence. “Who says I let down the bars? You bet I am man enough to say what I think; and if ye think I ain’t got the nerve—” His master encouraged him with ironic derision. “That’s right, Reilly. Who’s afraid? Cough it up and show York you’re game.” “By thunder, I _am_ game. I’ve got a kick coming, sorr.” “Yes?” Leroy rolled and lit a cigarette, his black eyes fixed intently on the malcontent. “Well, register it on the jump. I’ve got to be off.” “That’s the point.” The curly-headed Neil had lounged up to his comrade’s support. “_Why_ have you got to be off? We don’t savvy your game, cap.” “Perhaps you would like to be major-domo of this outfit, Neil?” scoffed his chief, eying him scornfully.