“Well, I wasn’t. At least, I wasn’t afraid that much. I knew that I would have been quite safe next time with the Mackenzies at the ranch.” “Then why was it?” “You can’t think of any reason?” She leaned forward and looked directly into his eyes—eyes as honest and as blue as an Arizona sky. But he stood unconvicted—nay, acquitted. The one reason she had dreaded he might offer to himself had evidently never entered his head. Whatever guesses he might have made on the subject, he was plainly guiltless of thinking she might have come with him because she was in love with him. “No, I can’t think of any other reason, if the one you gave isn’t the right one.” “Quite sure?” “Quite sure, pardner.” “Think! Why did you come to Chihuahua?” “To run down Wolf Leroy’s gang and to get Dave Henderson out of prison.” “Perhaps there is a reason why I should want him out of prison, a better reason than you could possibly have.” “I don’t savvy it. How can there be? You don’t know him, do you? He’s been in prison almost ever since you were born.” And on top of his last statement Bucky’s eyes began to open with a new light. “Good heavens! It can’t be possible. You’re not Webb Mackenzie’s little girl, are you?” She did not answer him in words, but from her neck she slipped a chain and handed it to him. On the chain hung a locket. The ranger struck a match and examined the trinket. “It’s the very missing locket. See! Here’s the other one. Compare them together.” He touched the spring and it opened, but the match was burned out and he had to light another. “Here’s the mine map that has been lost all these years. How did you get this? Have you always had it? And how long have you known that you were Frances Mackenzie?” His questions tumbled out one upon another in his excitement. She laughed, answering him categorically. “I don’t know, for sure. Yes, at least a great many years. Less than a week.” “But—I don’t understand—” “And won’t until you give me a chance to do some of the talking,” she interrupted dryly. “That’s right. I reckon I am getting off left foot first. It’s your powwow now,” he conceded. “So long as I can remember exactly I have always lived with the man Hardman and his wife. But before that I can vaguely recall something different. It has always seemed like a kind of fairyland, for I was a very little tot then. But one of the things I seem to remember was a sweet, kind-eyed mother and a big, laughing father. Then, too, there were horses and lots of cows. That is about all, except that the chain around my neck seemed to have some connection with my early life. That’s why I always kept it very carefully, and, after one of the lockets broke, I still kept it and the funny-looking paper inside of it.” “I don’t understand why Hardman didn’t take the paper,” he interrupted. “I suppose he did, and when he discovered that it held only half the secret of the mine he probably put it back in the locket. I see you have the other part.”