She thought, but did not say, that art would go a long way before it could show anything more pleasing than this rider of the plains. It was not alone his face, with the likable blue eyes that could say so many things in a minute, but the gallant ease of his bearing. Such a springy lightness, such sinewy grace of undulating muscle, were rare even on the frontier. She had once heard Webb Mackenzie say of him that he could whip his weight in wildcats, and it was easy of belief after seeing how surely he was master of the dynamic power in him. It is the emergency that sifts men, and she had seen him rise to several with a readiness that showed the stuff in him. That evening they slipped out unobserved in the dusk, and a few minutes later a young gipsy and his bride presented themselves at the inn to be put up. The scowling young Romany was particular, considering that he spent most nights in the open, with a sky for a roof. So the master of the inn thought when he rejected on one pretense or another the first two rooms that were shown him. He wanted two rooms, and they must connect. Had the innkeeper such apartments? The innkeeper had, but he would very much like to see the price in advance if he was going to turn over to guests of such light baggage the best accommodations in the house. This being satisfactorily arranged, the young gipsies were left to themselves in the room they had rented. The first thing that the man did when they were alone was to roll a cigarette, which operation he finished deftly with one hand, while the other swept a match in a circular motion along his trousers leg. In very fair English the Spanish gipsy said: “You ce’tainly ought to learn to smoke, kid. Honest, it’s more comfort than a wife.” “How do you know, since you are not married?” she asked archly. “I been noticing some of my poor unfortunate friends,” he grinned. CHAPTER VII. IN THE LAND OF REVOLUTIONS The knock that sounded on the door was neither gentle nor apologetic. It sounded as if somebody had flung a baseball bat at it. O’Connor smiled, remembering that soft tap of yore. “I reckon—” he was beginning, when the door opened to admit a visitor. This proved to be a huge, red-haired Irishman, with a face that served just now merely as a setting for an irresistible smile. The owner of the flaming head looked round in surprise on the pair of Romanies and began an immediate apology to which a sudden blush served as accompaniment. “Beg pardon. I didn’t know. The damned dago told me—” He stopped in confusion, with a scrape and a bow to the lady. “Sir, I demand an explanation of this most unwarrantable intrusion,” spoke the ranger haughtily, in his best Spanish. A patter of soft foreign vowels flowed from the stranger’s embarrassment. “You durned old hawss-stealing greaser, cayn’t you talk English?” drawled the gipsy, with a grin.