Chapter I.

PHYLLIS

Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a voice young and glad.

"My love has breath o'roses,

O'roses, o'roses,

And cheeks like summer posies

All fresh with morning dew,"

floated the words to her across the sunlit open.

If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen, silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit. They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest.

"Don't see me, do you?"he asked, smiling.

Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response.

"Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon."

"And you don't think you see much then?"he suggested lightly.

She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes.

"Mad at me, Phyl?"Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing.

The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still creeping antlike toward the hills.

"My love has breath o'roses,

O'roses, o'roses,"

he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came.

It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple.

"Somebody's acting right foolish,"he continued jauntily."It was all in fun, and in a game at that."

"I wasn't playing,"he heard, though the profile did not turn in the least toward him.

"We ll, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower."

"I don't play kissing games any more,"she informed him with dignity.

"Sho, Phyl! I told you'twas only in fun,"he justified himself."A kiss ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that ever was kissed."

She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth lacked firmness.

"So I've been told,"she answered tartly.

"Jealous?"

"No,"she exploded.

Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein.

"You don't need to depend on hearing,"he said, moving toward her.

"What do you mean?"she flared.

"You remember well enough—at the social down to Peterson's."

"We were children then—or I was."

"And you're not a kid now?"

"No, I'm not."

"Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things and now you have become a woman."

Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand.

"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't it?"he bantered.

"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon,"she flashed fiercely.

Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks, the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a masculine impulse he did not analyse.

"So you won't be friends?"

If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way.

"No, I won't."And she gave him her profile again.

"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about,"he said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward him.

With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her.

Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare insult.

"How dare you!"she gasped.

Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him. Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again—never so long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere with her external duties.

As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches on the stage.

From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn from a notebook.

"This here is for you, Phyl,"he explained.

She pushed it back."I'm too busy to read it."

"It's from Tom,"he further volunteered.

"Is it?"

She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the fragments through the window to the floor.

"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?"she coolly asked the next in line over the tow head of Bud.

The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon, a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it, she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain they would not forget to"rub it in"when next they met Master Tom. She promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station for their mail, to teach that young man his place.

"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's."

Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle.

"Any mail for Buck We aver?"

"No,"she answered promptly without looking.

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?"

Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her, for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate lawlessness.

"I know my business, sir."

We aver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and slipped an Arm into that of her father.

"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. We aver,"he was saying."It's been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin'you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh."

"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's reason a-plenty for me,"We aver told him contemptuously.

"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house——"

"I didn't come into your house."

"Why—why——"

"Father!"implored the girl."It's a government post-office. He has a right here as long as he behaves."

"H'm!"the old fire-eater snorted."I'd be obliged just the same, Mr. We aver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck."

"Dad!"the girl begged.

He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm."Now don't you worry, honey. The re ain't going to be any trouble—leastways none of my making. I ain't a-forgettin'my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin'down whilst anybody tromples on me neither."

"He wouldn't try to do that here,"Phyllis reminded him.

We aver laughed in grim irony."I'm surely much obliged to you for protecting me."And to the father he added carelessly:"Keep your shirt on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail."

With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to the last virile inch of him.