Then this _was_ the girl who had been playing in the riding act with Mortimer when Dukane came upon him first. Now, if by any chance Jim could connect that girl with Wrenn’s disagreeable daughter, whom Miss Templeton remembered! He was eager for a sight of her. Would that rather dim snapshot he had seen prove sufficient to identify her? He wondered! None of these pictures looked particularly like that nondescript smudge of a woman in the corner of the kodak picture which had been shown him that day. He examined them with close interest. One was of Rita the Daredevil, sitting a vicious-looking, rearing broncho, with a nonchalant air, and huge, ornamental spurs; another was of Rita the Daredevil firing with a rifle at an apple held up by a fat man in evening clothes. The third was, presumably, a likeness of Rita the Daredevil herself, doing nothing in particular but scowl at the world from beneath a picturesque sombrero. She certainly looked disagreeable enough to justify Grace Templeton’s unpleasant recollection of her. Of a markedly Spanish type, with the faint Indian cast which is so prevalent in South America, she was in no sense beguiling or prepossessing. It would be hard to vision those glowering black eyes soft with any tender emotion; her mouth was as hard and as bitter in line as that of some fierce yet stoical young savage, brooding over a darkly glorious nightmare of revenge. Fascinated, even while repelled, by the odd, forbidding face, Barrison started as he was roused from his momentary trance by the cool, rapid tones of Teddy Lucas: “Awfully sorry if you’ve been waiting. I don’t imagine we’re late for our act, though. Have you a cigarette? We can smoke here. Righto! Come along!” They went in and took the places reserved for them in a stage box. Jim was glad to be so close to the stage; he wanted to study this woman as minutely as he could. As they settled themselves, an attendant changed the cards giving the names of the acts. With a real thrill Barrison saw that they read: “Rita the Daredevil.” “Good stuff,” murmured Lucas critically. “They don’t say what she does, nor what makes her a daredevil. They just say it, and wait for her to make good. Of course, she probably won’t.” He took the evening newspaper from under his arm, and on the margin of the first page scribbled a short enigmatic note in pencil. On the stage was a small table decorated with a .44 rifle and several small weapons, a target painted in red and gold instead of black and white, and a large mirror. Almost immediately Rita the Daredevil made her entrance. She was dressed in the regulation “cowgirl’s” outfit—short skirt of khaki, sombrero, heavy leather belt, high-laced brown boots, embroidered gauntlets. As though to give a touch of daintiness to her costume, she wore a thin white shirtwaist, and a scarlet tie. Also, the buckle on her belt was of gold, and there was a golden ornament in the band of her broad felt hat.