There was nothing, after that, for the ladies to do but retire in the best form they could; but as Mary Fortune came out in an auto' bonnet with a veil and coat to match they tore her character to shreds from behind the Venetian blinds. So that was her game--she had thrown over McBain and was setting her cap for Rimrock Jones. And automobile clothes! Well, if that wasn't proof that she was living down a past the ladies would like to know. A typewriter girl, earning less that seventy dollars a month, and with a trunk full of joy-riding clothes! With such women about her it called for some courage for Mary Fortune to make the plunge; but the air was still fragrant, spring was on the wind and the ground dove crooned in his tree. She was tired, worn out with the deadly monotony of working on day by day; and she had besides that soul-stirring elation of having won in the great game for her stock. "It'll be a stockholders' meeting," Rimrock had explained in her ear. "We represent a majority of the stock. I want to tell you something big, where nobody else will hear. Come on, let your typewriting slide!" And Mary Fortune had laughed and run scampering up the stairs and come down with her gloves and veil, and as the automobile moved off she had that joyous sensation of something about to happen. They drove out of town on the one straight road that led to the Gunsight mine and Rimrock was so busy with the mechanics of his driving that she had a chance to view the landscape by herself. The white, silty desert, stretching off to blue mountains, was set as regularly as a vineyard with the waxy, dark-green creosote bushes; and at uncertain intervals the fluted giant cactus rose up like sentinels on the plain. All the desert trees that grew near the town--the iron-woods and palo verdes and cat-claws and mesquite and salt-bushes--had been uprooted by the Mexicans in their search for wood; but in every low swale the grass was still green and the cactus was crowned with gorgeous blossoms. "Isn't it glorious?" she sighed as she breathed the warm air and Rimrock looked up from studying his clutches. "The finest God ever made!" he said as his engine chugged smoothly along. "By George, I was glad to get home. Ever been in New York? Well, you know what it's like then; give me Arizona, every time. But say, that's some town; I stayed at the Waldorf, where the tips are a dollar a throw. Every time you turn around, or the boy grabs your hat, you give him a dollar bill. Say, I put up a front--they all thought I was a millionaire--have you ever been down to the curb market? Oh, don't you know what that is? Why, it's the place near Wall street where they sell stock in the middle of the street." He negotiated a sand wash and nearly stripped a gear as he threw in the low by mistake.