But before the copleta could be finished there was a burst of profanity from the front door of the house, and James Bragdon with a gun, shouting and loosing his powerful mongrel dog, half wolf from the plains, at the serenader, who perforce took to his heels. Leaping to the horse tethered somewhere out of sight, the serenader made his escape in a volley of flying hoofs that grew fainter and fainter and died away. The girl, listening nervously behind the curtains, heard her father say: “Well, I guess that will be the end of him. I’ll be troubled with him no more.” But to Luis the indignity of such an ignominious rout was a never-to-be-forgotten insult. Frustrated, he strode his room in such a fury as he had never before felt himself possessed of. His handsome young face was suffused with blood, his ordinarily weak mouth drawn into a straight hard line. He looked into the mirror as he passed and saw that his white shirt was covered with the muddy footprints of Bragdon’s dog, which had run over the freshly irrigated fields. With shaking hand Luis brushed off the dirt and fastidiously flecked his beautiful light cloth trousers. “I will finish that cur of a Yankee,” he swore. He waited till he heard Don Anabel complete his rounds of the casa, locking every door or bolting it. When the house was quiet once more Luis slipped out through the window and away to his familiars. Steven rode out to Bragdon’s house the next afternoon. He thought that Hope might be lonely, now that Mrs. Trenour was leaving for Taos, and he had not yet called upon the Bragdons in their new home. Hope was very much pleased, but she greeted the young man somewhat nervously, looking at her father to see what his reception of their caller would be. James Bragdon, however, was most cordial. He held Steven a long time talking business. “I should think that you could persuade your father, with his great wealth and vast business interests,” he said, ingratiatingly, “to send out a caravan. If he would outfit you for a trip every six months I would gladly be your agent at this end of the line and handle all your business.” “If I arrived alive,” said Steven, with grim humor. “But what makes you think my father has such vast interests?”