“Done. I’m to open the letter when we cross the line into Texas.” Bucky shook the little hand that was offered him and wished mightily that he had the right to celebrate with more fervent demonstrations. That afternoon the ranger wrote with a good deal of labor the letter he had promised. It appeared to be a difficult thing for him to deliver himself even on paper of those good and sufficient reasons. He made and destroyed no less than half a dozen openings before at last he was fairly off. Meanwhile, Master Frank, busy over some alterations in Bucky’s gypsy suit, took pleasure in deriding with that sweet voice the harassed correspondent. “It might be a love letter from the pains you take with it. Would you like me to come and help you with it?” the sewer railed merrily. “I ain’t used to letter writing much,” apologized the scribe, wiping his bedewed brow, which had suddenly gone a shade more flushed. “Apparently not. I expect, from the time you give it, the result will be a literary classic.” “Don’t you disturb me, Curly, or I’ll never get done,” implored the tortured ranger. “You’re doing well. You’ve only been an hour and a half on six lines,” the tormentor mocked. Womanlike, she was quite at her ease, since he was very far indeed from being at his. Yet she had a problem of her own she was trying to decide. Had he discovered, after all, that she was not a boy, and had his reasons—the ones he was trying to tell in that disturbing letter—anything to do with that discovery? Such a theory accounted for several things she had noticed in him of late. There was an added respect in his manner for her. He never now invaded the room recognized as hers without a specific invitation, nor did he seem any longer to chafe at the little personal marks of fastidiousness that had at first appeared to annoy him. To be sure, he ordered her about, just as he had been in the habit of doing at first. But it was conceivable that this might be a generous blind to cover up his knowledge of her sex. “How do you spell guessed—one s or two?” he presently asked, out of the throes of composition. She spelled it, and added demurely: “Adore has only one d” Bucky laid down his pen and pretended to glare at him. “You young rascal, what do you mean by bothering me like that? Act like that, you young imp, and you’ll never grow up to be a gentleman.” Their glances caught and held, the minds of each of them busy over that last prediction of his. For one long instant masks were off and both were trying to find an answer to a question in the eyes opposite. Then voluntarily each gaze released the other in a confusion of sweet shame. For the beating of a lash, soul had looked into naked soul, all disguise stripped from them. She knew that he knew. Yet in that instant when his secret was surprised from him another secret, sweeter than the morning song of birds, sang its way into both their hearts. CHAPTER X. THE HOLD-UP OF THE M. C. P. FLYER