Mary Hope gave a gasp and caught him by the arm, shaking it a little as if she were afraid that otherwise he would not listen to her. "Oh, but I canna go home! I've a horse and my riding clothes in Jumpoff, and I must go for them and come home properly on horseback to-morrow! It's because of the lie I told my mother, so that I could come to the dance with the Kennedys. Set me down here anywhere, Lance Lorrigan, and let me walk until the Kennedys overtake me! They'll be coming soon, now--as soon as Bill Kennedy gets licket sober. You can stop the horses--surely you can stop them and let me out. But please, _please_ do not take me home to-night, in this party dress--and a coat that isna mine at all!" "I'm not taking you home, girl. I'm taking you to Jumpoff. And it won't matter to you whether Bill Kennedy is licked sober or not. And to-morrow I'll find out who owns the coat. I'll say I found it on the road somewhere. Who's to prove I didn't? Or if you disapprove of lying about it, I'll bring it back and leave it beside the road." "It's a lot of trouble I'm making for you," said Mary Hope quite meekly, and let go his arm. "I should not have told the lie and gone to the dance. And I canna wear my own coat home, because it's there in the pile behind the door, and some one else will take it. So after all it will be known that I lied, and you may as well take me home now and let me face it." To this Lance made no reply. But when the pintos came rattling down the hill to where the Douglas trail led away to the right, he did not slow them, did not take the turn. Mary Hope looked anxiously toward home, away beyond the broken skyline. A star hung big and bright on the point of a certain hill that marked the Douglas ranch. While she watched it, the star slid out of sight as if it were going down to warn Hugh Douglas that his daughter had told a lie and had gone to a forbidden place to dance with forbidden people, and was even now driving through the night with one of the Lorrigans,--perchance the wickedest of all the wicked Lorrigans, because he had been away beyond the Rim and had learned the wickedness of the cities.