"I mean that His Cautious Majesty did not come, however much El Chaparrito seems to want him. But--" and Rodrigo's tone lowered heavily, "but his August Spouse came instead. She is in that cabin now. It is well, senor, for vengeance in kind is just. It is righteous, it is biblical. Since fate has thrown----" "E-a-s-y! Eas-y, boy. Of course, if we've gone and netted an empress, we'll ask 'em to please take her back. This ain't a woman's game." "Give up a queen's ransom?" Driscoll nodded cheerfully. "I believe, caballero," said the brigand with awful dignity, "that I command here." Driscoll looked at his Missourians returning from the chase. "Well," he laughed, "you might try it on, and see how they take it." Behind Jacqueline the door opened. She almost jumped. Of the hundreds likely to enter there, her startled fancy pictured only one. But the new comer was a stranger. "Oh-ho, come a-visiting, eh?" The voice was cordial, robust, Western. "Missour-_i_!" she exclaimed involuntarily. "Yes'm, Cooper county." She turned, won to friendliness, and beheld a man who, to use her mental ejaculation, was "of a leanness!" "Monsieur----" and she paused. "Boone, ma'am. Daniel, your most obedient servant. If I'd known--Sho', we might of had things spruced up a bit. Are you the queen, maybe?" The lady's laugh rang as clear as a bell. Taken aback, Boone sought to correct his mistake. He saw that Berthe was seated in the hammock. She, then, must be the Empress. "I'm downright sorry we went and captured Your Majesty," he began. "Her Imperial Highness does not understand English," Jacqueline explained. Then to her surprise the man proceeded in French. He was evidently greatly disturbed because Missouri hospitality did not harmonize with war. "It was a blunder," he apologized earnestly, "come of our deciding just this morning to make you Europeans vacate our continent. But don't let that worry Your Majesty. Here, under my roof, the decision doesn't hold, _at_ all!" Berthe lifted her head quickly. It was her second promotion in the social scale that day. She had trembled when the door opened, for she knew that Rodrigo's side had triumphed. But this tall stranger brought relief to one's nerves, and somehow she had watched him trustingly. He was of the same race as Monsieur Driscoll, to whom also she had once turned instinctively for help. But when the tremendous young fellow addressed her with reverence due a queen, she felt only the respectful admiration due a pretty young woman. It unexpectedly awakened in her the knowledge that she was a pretty young woman; and with a winsomeness that amazed and delighted Jacqueline, to say nothing of its effect on Daniel, she gently put him right as to her identity. "It doesn't matter," Boone protested stoutly, "you ought to be one!"