The young ladies were immensely interested. They wanted to hear all about it and moved into the parlor to be settled and comfortable. They tried to make Mark sit in a massive, gold-trimmed armchair, but he had his wits about him by this time and took a humbler seat beside Lorry. Aunt Ellen sank into her rocker with a sigh of achievement and Chrystie perched on the piano stool. Then he told them the story, forgetting his bashfulness under the spell of their attentive eyes. "Why can't they catch them," said Chrystie, "if they know their names?" He couldn't help laughing at that. "Why, of course they have other names," Lorry explained. "They don't go about as Knapp and Garland." "But people must see them," Chrystie insisted, "somebody must know what they look like." Mark had to straighten it out for her. "Their friends do--ranchers up in the hills, and their pals in the towns. But the sheriffs and the general public don't. When they're out for business they cover their faces, tie handkerchiefs or gunny sacks round them." Chrystie shuddered delightedly. "How awful they must be! I'd love to be held up just to see them." Mark and Lorry looked at one another and smiled, as age and experience smile at the artlessness of youth. It was an interchange of mutual understanding, a flash of closer intimacy, and as such lifted the young man to sudden heights. "Where do they put the money?" said Aunt Ellen, her thought processes, under the unusual stimulus of a conversation on bandits, stirred to energy. "That's what we'd like to know, Mrs. Tisdale. They have a cache somewhere but nobody's been able to find it. I saw the sheriff before I left and _he_ thinks it's up in the hills among the chaparral." "Is the messenger dead?" asked Lorry. "Oh, no--he's getting on all right. They don't shoot to kill, just put him out of business for the time being." "That's merciful," Aunt Ellen announced in a sleepy voice. Chrystie, finding no more delicious shudders in the subject, twirled round on the stool and began softly picking out notes on the piano. For a space Mark and Lorry talked--it was about the ranch near the tules--rather dull as it came to Chrystie through her picking. The young man kept looking at Lorry's face, then dropping his glance to the floor, abashed before the gentle attention of her eyes, fearful his own might say too much. He thought it was just her sweetness that made her ask about his people, but everything about Mark Burrage interested her. Had he guessed it he would have been as much surprised as she had she known that he thought her beautiful. Presently Chrystie's notes took form and became a tinkling tune. She tried it over once then whirled round on the stool. "There--I've got it! Listen. Isn't it just like it, Lorry?" Lorry immediately ceased talking and listened while the tune ran a halting course through several bars. "Like what?" she said. "I don't know what it's meant to be."