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Show your hair Dp around your head when you nun;: there. I'm a bad lot. Miss SavarlD. and not tit to speak to you or look at you, hut no matter what I am I've got to teiJ you this that there's enough white man In me to make me live in hell because of whfj I did or tried to do to you. I'm on my kneea to you. Not asking your forgiveness that couldn't be but Just down In the dirt and wanting you to know It That's all. Thanks for listening." He took off his hat and turned sharply on his heel, and as Sonya threw In the clutch and roared away she was conscious of the two dark strangers and I'arks In the shadow of the doorway Intently watching them bo tli. So. He was In hell, was he? In the dirt, was he? Well, that was where he deserved to he, rotter that he was! A tall man. Lean and built with unusual un-usual grace. Narrow hipped, broad shouldered, straight In the back. He wore a blue flannel shirt with pearl buttons and a dark hat, and there were belled spurs on his stitched hoots. Cowboy stuff, yet she did not know of any cattle ranch In this wide sheep country where he might work. Where did he come from? What was he doing in this part of the country? coun-try? Why had he come round the curve of Two Fingers' hogan that day on foot? She'd ask Two Fingers about that matter. Yes, she would do so. She had a certain right to know who this man was and what he did In this land, since he had all but been her death. "Well," said Serge at supper, "It seems lonely without Rod. Good old scout. You're a lucky girl, Sonya." "Am I?" said Sonya. "Sometimes I wonder." "What? About Rod Blake? No finer man in this world I He's still young, and one of the best lawyers in New York ; rich, partly by his own efforts, partly by family inheritance, of good blood and Impeccable principles. princi-ples. I'm surprised at you." "Yes. Well, maybe," said the girl. Lila looked at her across the table for a long moment with a strange expression ex-pression In her eyes but said nothing. I "My heavens!" saM Sonya wonder-Ingly. wonder-Ingly. "My heavens! You're right Two lingers. No see so gocd horse, ever. And this Is not the one " She had' almost said, "he rode on l.one Mesa.'' but checked herself. "Well." she said instead, "I must get going. Long ride home. You take good care of Little Moon. 111 come back in three days." So she Jogged away down Chee wash, her hat down over her eyes, smiling a little just In the Joy of living and the beauty of the desert. There was no one sick about now that Little Moon was getting well, and she would do some of the things she had wanted to do for herself for a long time. For one, she would go over and spend a couple of days with her friend Myra Little, on the Black Sheep ranch. She hadn't seen her for three months, and she was very fond of her. Llla agreed heartily with Sonya's plan to visit Myra Liltle, and two days later the girl departed on Darkness. She started early to avoid as much of the day's heat as possible, and made the long hard ride In good time, trotting trot-ting Into Myra's door yard just as she was putting dinner on the table. Myra, a tall gaunt woman, desert bitten of face and form but dawn fair Inside her soul, was at her stirrup before be-fore she could dismount. "My soul alive!" she cried catching the girl's hand, "now Just isn't this a treat! Ah, Sonya, how glad I am to see you I" She put her arm around the girl's waist and the two women entered the wide low ranch house where the savory smell of baked mutton and potatoes scented the warm air. Sonya smiled around at the cool, deep room, so plain, so comfortable, where this courageous and intrepid Myra lived her hard working life, laid her saddlebags on the couch, ran her comb through her short hair; and was ready. She went out through the big room and washed at the bench on the back porch, drying on the clean roller towel Myra was hastily hanging up. The meal steaming on the table was plain but good : hot bread, the mutton mut-ton and potatoes, onions sliced in vinegar, vine-gar, and a can of fruit opened in her honor. There were Indians here, a woman with a shy child of four, a half-grown girl, two men. These ate at a long table on the pleasant porch, while the two white women sat at Myra's own small table in one end of the living room. Myra owned and ran the Black Sheep ranch. "Oh, Sonya," said Myra happily, "I just can't tell you how good it is to see you ! It's been a long time since we had a talk, an' I'm just goln' to lay off the whole afternoon for the matter. mat-ter. Come on, Sonya, let's go an' rest." Sonya followed her into the darkened dark-ened room beyond, which served as the best room of the house. On its walls were astonishing paintings of the desert des-ert land in oils: rich, true, glowing canvases that would have drawn their crowds In any gallery of ehe world. These were Myra Little's romance, her satisfying draught of beauty, her outlet out-let for that inner fineness which found so little chance in the stark service of the sheep. Always they struck Sonya anew with their austere magnitude, and always as now she stood before them marveling. marvel-ing. "It's a shame, Myra," she said now, shaking her head, "that these pictures can't be hung In New York. Maybe some day when I'm there I'll see about the matter." "You goin' there, Sonya? Takln' a trip?" asked Myra quickly. Flame of the Border By VINGIE E. ROE Copyright, DcuMsilay, Uor.a A Co.. Inc. WNU Hrvlc SYNOPSIS HeaklnK dnath by tlirowInK herself from the summit of Lone Mesa, to escape dishonor at the hands of a drunken 4SPrs40i Bonya Savarln allows al-lows herself to be rescued by her suddenly sud-denly sobered mid repentant attacker. The lrl Is a self-appointed physician to the Navajo Indians, living on an Arizona sheep ranch with her brother Merge, his wife, Llla, and their small daughter, Hans. For a year she has been engaged to llodney Ulake. wealthy New Yorker, but tier heart Is with the friendless Navujoe and she evades a wedding. Sonya pulls Little Moon, wife of Two Fingers, a Navajo, through the crisis of an Illness. Two Fingers Is deeply grateful. Ulake returns to New York, declaring he will give Sonya six more months and then demand she keep her promise to marry him. CHAPTER III A Man Leaves and Another Speaks. Tha mile town, close on the border of the Iteservatlon, was typical of all desert towns, lonely anil bleak and washed continually with wind and Hand. It held a store or two, a blaek-Hinlth blaek-Hinlth shop, a tiny station on the railroad rail-road line, and tho customary tanks of water. Sonya parked the car In front of the general store, and taking her handbag from the seat beside her, climbed out and entered. The store boasted two clerks besides the owner. This owner was a bland fat man by the name of I'arks, a man whom Sonya disliked Instinctively, but who never allowed anyone except himself to wait on her. lie came forward now, the creases of his heavy face set deep with smiles. "Why, Miss Savarln!" he said unctuously, unctu-ously, "what can we do for you? Like some nice fresh fruit? Got In some right good oranges an' grapefruit this week.'' Sonya spent some lime In tho store, buying a fair supply of the oranges, thinking of Little Moon, and of more staple things for Llla. As she walked briskly about, sjeloct-lug sjeloct-lug this and that, there was the stir of arrival at the high board porch outside. out-side. Throe men were coming In, and Sonya looked up from her task casually, as one docs In such circumstances. Instantly she felt the annoying prickle of her skin, the odd anger that had seared her before, for one of the newcomers new-comers was the tall bronze man of l.one Mesa. The two with him were tiark and rough, men of secret eyes and narrow lips, in appeurance the worst of the Border types which Sonya knew, and she prided herself she had seen them all In this man's country. Had homines, she told herself, after that first swift glance, fit companions to that drunken libertine who had dragged her from her horse on the top of Lone Mesa. At that memory her face burned with hot anger and she set her lovely full-lipped mouth luto a stern Hue, shook her shoulders exactly as If she tiling off some actual repellent touch. She strode forward, head up, eyes straight, and had to pass within live feet Of the three men who had entered. As she diA so she was conscious of the eyes, undel the tilted hat-brim, on her face. It wl ( as if a strong magnetic current pullLujtt her In passing, as If some lnartlcyp& power focussed all Its Strength rj her that she might look aside. v stvoug and compelling was this that to save her life she could not help the flicker of her eyelids, the almost unbearable desire to turn and look. But she did not turn. Angry to her boot heels, both with her outraged out-raged memory aud with herself, she walked to the door and out So stirred was she within herself that she sat slumped In her seat, her hands thrust In her sweater pockets, and did not turn even when she heard Parks, or who she thought was Parks, come out across the porch with her box of supplies. sup-plies. "Put Uieui In back," she said, nodding nod-ding over her shoulder, "and thanks." As she reached for the gearshift she stopped In the act, arrested by a TOlce that was not Parks'. "Miss Savariu," it said, "can I speak to you a minute?" Sonya straightened up and looked at the owuer of the voice. Straight In the eyes she looked him, her mouth shut hard again. And at that straight look she saw again the wild blue eyes under the level bronze brows that had stared down In her face as she hung to the dead root of the piuon stump on the windswept face of Lone Mesa. But they were vastly changed. The black pupils that had spread so wildly over the blue of the Iris that day were normal now, the expression anxious. "Well?" she said thinly. "Why Should you talk to me?" "Why why, Just because It seems must. I want to to tell you to ssk you If Can you believe me when i tell you that I've never had a minute's min-ute's peace since that day on the Mesa? I've never forgotten your face or your hands or the wind blowing "No," said Sonya, "and yes. No trip. Going to stay, I guess." "What?" The word came quick and sharp. Sonya moved uneasily, nodded. "I think so," she said, turning to look at Myra gravely. "When a woman is engaged to marry a man, she goes where he lives, doesn't she?" "Why, I didn't know " "No. It Isn't public property, but I am. Rodney Blake, an old college friend of Serge's. Fine man." Myra stood silent, searching Sonya's face with her clear gray eyes. "Why, Sonya," she said presently, "how will we all ever do without you? An' yet that's only selfishness. It will be fine for you. You've lived so fast and deeply in this desert that It's only right you go back where you belong, get the rest an' life that's comin' to you. You deserve it." "Well maybe. But now let's sit down and visit We haven't had a real talk-fest for months and months." Sonya heard that the Brights still farther over east had a pair of twins, and that Sam Savina, notorious Border Bor-der thief, had been found Just across the Rio Grande crucified, a grim Mexican Mex-ican warning to his kind. Also that the Servant of the Lord was coming In to the Black Sheep that very night on one of his constant Journeys. The two bits of news seemed to suggest each other; the crucifixion and the gentle, half-mad old man who rode the desert country year In, year out. In the effort to save souls. Sonya had seen him a time or two before. in her turn she told Myra of the sickness of Little Moon, of Mr. Sat-ter Sat-ter and the children he had gathered in from Blue Sand wash, and finallv "No Can Say," He Said. "Come Here for Other Horse." Later, as the two women washed the dishes and set the house to rights for the night, she look at her again. "Sonya darling," she said calmly, "Rod Blake is not the man. I don't believe you love Rod, honestly, deep down, as a woman should love the man she marries. I haven't thought so for a long time, for nearly all of this last visit of his." A flame of loyalty flared up In Sonya. "Piffle!" she said hotly. "Of course I love him, the old dear. Go on, put Babs to bed, and don't worry that yellow yel-low head of yours. By this time next year I'll be Mrs. Rodney Blake, riding around New York in a limousine and you'll be darned lonesome out here without me." "And how I" said Lila inelegantly but fervently. "I don't want to think-about think-about it." "Then don't. There's a long time and a lot of things betweea" How long aud how many, measured by their Importance, Sonya herself could not foresee. The next day she rode over to Chee wash again and found Little Moon so much better that she was sitting up. Also she found one of her enemies. This was Yellow Buck, a medicine man, who regarded her service to his people as a direct Inroad on his territory terri-tory and hated her accordingly. She was trying to replace his sings and devil-chasing with the medicine in her saddlebags. She was all bad. "Two Fingers," said Sonya when she was ready to leave that day, "who was the man who came hre on foot the day my man came after me? Tall man with sun hair, sky eyes?" Two Fingers shook his head. "No can say," he said. "Come here for other horse. His horse go bad lame. I give him horse, go get his next day. In corral now. Good horse. No see so good horse, ever. Come see." Sonya swung up on Darkness and followed him around the hogan and up a little rise to where several brush-and-stick corrals stood among some low trees. There, in one of them, stood such a horse as she had not seen ever, either. Taller than Darkness, who was a fine specimen of native animal which the Indians called American Amer-ican horse, bright as new gold and of Its color, though paler, this horse was built with a grace and beauty that transcended description. of the man of Lone Mesa and what had happened that day on the windswept wind-swept top of the tableland. "My heavens I" said Myra breathlessly breath-lessly as she vlsloned the girl hanging hang-ing on the face of the precipice, "why did you take that jump?" Sonya flushed. "Why? Do you think I'd care to live after after being the plaything of a drunken renegade? I?" TO BE CONTINUED. |