“I trust such a thing won’t happen. It would be most unfortunate, Miss Raquel, indeed, even for a stockholder of your father’s assets. For the new directors have--well, ah--intimated that no extension would be considered.” Raquel was looking quite as self-possessed when she walked out of the bank as she had when she walked in, but within her breast was a turmoil. Back to the telegraph office she went. Eagerly she tore open the yellow envelope that was eventually handed across the counter. “Don’t worry,” it ran, “will find out what’s what and get some action. Can’t get away just now but will come up first chance. Jimmy.” Raquel felt suddenly that it was surely mighty nice to have some man folks to stand up for you and help you out sometimes. Leaving word with the operator to have any further messages telephoned to Red Dog, she turned the nose of her car out on the sandy mesa that rose gently to the foot of her purpling mountains. She would need five days to move in before April first. Two to get the cattle into the railroad; two for transit; one for immediate payment. She had four days’ grace. Why had she trusted any one? Engrossed with her thoughts, and with the mechanical necessity of driving, she did not speak until the little lighted _casitas_ of Red Dog shone ahead. With their friendly twinkle a light of inspiration seemed to penetrate the problem in Raquel’s mind. Her next move was all at once clear. But she’d take no one into her confidence! She’d do like Dad. For all he seemed to talk so much and so openly of his affairs, when you stopped to think it over he never did really tell anybody anything they couldn’t find out for themselves. When she looked back on the days that followed they seemed like a dream--of tense waiting, and daily trips from the big corral over to Red Dog or La Cruz to find the occasional hopeful bulletins from Jimmy. Then, on the night of the twenty-fifth, a ranger brought word that a Mr. Hovey was calling her from El Paso. She drove into Red Dog to talk to him over the telephone. “Drive your cattle down tomorrow. There will be cars for twelve hundred head at the La Cruz yards between six and seven tomorrow morning. “Don’t ask how I did it! Just pull--that may not last more than twenty-four hours. Will be up next week.” Jimmy’s far-away voice ended in a satisfied chuckle. At dawn with the bells of Los Ranchos tolling, all hands went down to the big pens. The cattle had been resting and fattening for the past ten days inside a half-mile fence. There was some pretty riding and roping and some fancy cow work as they were herded up for the drive down to the yards at La Cruz. The hardest part of the drive was getting them up to the pass and over it. But they made it by four that afternoon, and dropped down to the mesa beyond Red Dog. “There goes Daniels’ gal,” said the saloon keeper as he peered out. “Seems like she’s kep’ agoin’ spite of old ‘A. B.’”