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Show llilB y3y PETER " s umt ! dians had put so many arrows In him he looked like a porcupine." "You've been around a great deal I mean, you've seen more of what people call life than I have, Miss Sutherland " "Call me Mary, Len?" "Thanks. I've been wanting to but remembered the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt and I couldn't risk contempt from you. Have you ever seen a case of love at first sight?" "I have seen what turned out to be infatuation at first sight." "Do you believe it's possible for one to fall In love at first sight of the love object?" Len asked. "In diagnosing a disease doctors often make the mistake of confusing the symptoms; hence it's not surprising sur-prising that the symptoms of true love and infatuation always confuse the patient who will insist on being his own doctor. Love is a profound emotion and infatuation is a hallucination." halluci-nation." "Well, when one feels all hippity-ho hippity-ho inside, when his feeling is one of worshipfulness and admiration for quality, when he'd swim a river full of hungry crocodiles to fight three world's champions on the farther bank because they were in his way, and if he was unhappy about It because be-cause his circumstances indicated he should keep his mouth shut " "Why, you old Pollyanna! Didn't you know that true love like that is only found in Victorian novels that THE STORY TIIUS FAR: Mary Sutherland, Suth-erland, an eastern girl, Is lured to Art-tona Art-tona by the advertisements of the Wagon Wheel dude ranch, operated by Ma and Pa Burdan. She Is met at the station by Len Henley, rodeo rider, who tells her that the Wagon Wheel has gone out of business. Len takes her to Phoenix, where she meets Len's Aunt Margaret Maxwell. Hearing that the Wagon Wheel Ranch Is broke, Ham Henley Sr., Len's flad, purchased the Burdan notes from the bank. He wants complete control. While at Phoenix Len enters the rodeo, drawing a broncho known as Mad Hatter, v toughest horse in the West. Ham Henley bets his son Len three to one that Len won't be able to stay on Mad Hatter. CHAPTER V "You hear that, you scallawag," he old man almost yelled. "Even (trangers realize you been a disgrace dis-grace to the family." He smiled at Mary with great appreciation of her support and held out his glass to tlink with hers. "I'm not surprised. Red-heads is always smart." Mary thought Len Henley considerably consid-erably less exuberant than his father, fa-ther, who went on, his voice raised r 1 n octave under the stress of his motion. "The son of a gun breeds back to my old man, Miss Sutherland, Suther-land, and my pappy was the most tontrary man that ever helped Ari-tona Ari-tona to statehood. If you asked Urn nice to do something he'd bust I hamestrap to do it, but if you live him an order he'd get rebellious rebel-lious right off. The ladies donned their wraps presently and the party motored out io the Phoenix country club in Ham Henley's car. The orchestra was playing as they entered the dining room, so Len appropriated Mary for 4 a dance while his father led Mrs. Maxwell to the table. "Well," he announced, as they circled the small dance floor, "that's my old man, dinner clothes, cowman's cow-man's fine boots,' black sombrero and his own tobacco and cigarette papers. I hope you'll like him." "I hope I shall. He requires knowing, know-ing, however, although I have half a suspicion his bark is very much worse than his bite. I gathered that fou haven't seen each other for a long time." "We don't travel the same roads. Miss Sutherland." "It's nice to think you'll meet fre- juently, now that you have decided to buy the Wagon Wheel ranch." She added, after a long pause, "Why not leave the Wade brothers to somebody some-body else? I have a suspicion your father is in a mood tonight to give you half his kingdom." "But first he'll make me demon-itrate demon-itrate I can manage it capably and profitably. So I think I'll glean my experience on a job that I'll boss; then, if there should arise necessity for a good job of criticism Dr scolding, I'll do it." a love that had had a quick birth and might be destined to die as quickly, but with that contingency they were, happily, not concerned, for Time, -the tomb-builder, also builds Castles in Spain! When they returned to the table Hamilton Henley gave them both sharp looks, in which pride and curiosity curi-osity were mingled. ,He said to Mary, Ma-ry, "What business is your father in, young lady?" and murmured, "Tck! Tck! Tck!" when informed that her father had no occupation, unless that of killing time could be considered one. He pondered this. "I should have retired long ago myself," he announced, an-nounced, "only I been afraid to. I wouldn't know what to do with my time. It takes a smarter man than I be to make his pile an' retire an' chuck the habit o' work. The art o' playin' has got to be learnt when a feller's young, like Len." i ' "My father started learning it in his crib." "I see. Your grandfather done it all, eh?" "No, the drone strainin our family fam-ily sprang from my great-grandfather, who went to California in 1849. He was a smart Yankee and quickly discovered that gold was something miners slaved and starved to acquire in order that they might enjoy brief periods of riotous living. liv-ing. So my ancestor decided to supply sup-ply the riotous living and engaged in the business of retailing squirrel whisky. The price of a drink was a pinch of gold-dust from a miner's poke and great-grandfather had an unusually large thumb and forefinger. forefin-ger. Eventually he employed both hands and grabbed everything in sight." That tale drew a hearty laugh from Hamilton Henley. "Well, you ain't a stuck-up dude at any rate," he complimented her. "Len's great grandfather was one o' the first set-tiers set-tiers in Arizona an' while the grab-bin' grab-bin' was good an' he had the grab-bin' grab-bin' instinct the Indians didn't leave him no time to grab. All he collected col-lected was the scelps o' Apaches twenty-eight of 'em, an' then got himself killed resentin' an insult to his jedgment o' scelps. A feller put a piece in the paper claimin' three o' the old man's scelps was Mexican." Mexi-can." It was Mary's turn to laugh. "It would appear," she said, "that the old Grecian spirit Isn't frozen in the Henley veins." Hamilton Henley said to his son: "This dude is good company, son, smart as a fox and easy to look at, but she won't do for you." He spoke in Spanish Mary was to discover that a great many native Arizonans are bi-lingual. "Be careful, son. I'd have kissed her, too at your age. Remember, a man has to put on some age before he gets hoss sense. You're just somethin' for her to "I could wish you hadn't made that bet with him, Don Leonardo." "I could, too, but he asked for it snd I gave it to him, because there was a certain malice behind his desire de-sire . . . Well, not malice, really, but that hateful 'this-hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you' formula of fatherhood father-hood in the woodshed. He thinks I'm conceited about my rough riding and that it's his duty,-as my father, to take a modicum of that conceit out of me. Also, he'd like to wreck me financially, because he thinks that the older I grow and the poorer I ' become the easier it will be to break down my resolve never to enter his employ. Happiness means more to me than money greatly in excess of reasonable needs, so Pappy isn't going go-ing to slip the burden of his assets to me." "I can't quarrel with that philosophy, philoso-phy, Len." Her thoughts shifted abruptly. "I imagine had you been inspired this morning to buy the Wagon Wheel ranch instead of this evening you would not have risked a couple of thousand dollars to gamble on yourself. your-self. " "That's the principal reason why I decided to buy the ranch!" "If one handicaps that horse on his past performances, three to one on him are fair odds. And he has already al-ready won over you three times." "True, but I learned the secret of his fighting style. Since then I've watched him unload fifty good men and I've noticed he never changes bis technique. But tomorrow I'll rtde that old champion to a squealing squeal-ing finish. I'll not even permit the pick-up men to take me off. I'm going to ride Mad Hatter until his heart breaks and he stands still and says: 'Boy, you win.' " "It must be very comforting." she mused, "to possess that sort of self-confidence, self-confidence, to do all one's own thinking think-ing and make all one's own plans. My life runs in a groove, like the ivory ball on a roulette wheel." "But in the end," he reminded ber, "the ball always pops out of the groove." "I wish I had a job. Don Leonardo. Leo-nardo. I'd like to make some money mon-ey for 'he fun of making it, to work nt a task because it is not an easy one. to get it down and throttle it." "Ferhaps we have a small touch of atavism here. Miss Sutherland." "My great-grandmother walked beside a covered wagon and punched oxen from Springfield, Missouri, to Saciamento, California. And she bore my grandfather en route and got herself two Indians with her brother's K tucky rific after the In- amuse nerseti witn. i Know Decause you got a speck o' her war paint on the corner of your mouth." His son thanked him for this information in-formation and casually wiped his mouth. Hamilton Henley spoke again to his son in Spanish. "Not that I blame you, son. It ain't often a fuse blows out and leaves you in the dark for half a minute with a dashin' young woman like this one. A feller's got to smother his opportunities." oppor-tunities." "I suggest you start getting accustomed ac-customed to her now, father, because be-cause I'm liable to marry her in spite of hell and high water." "You would," Ham Henley replied. re-plied. "Trust you to make a fool of yourself. And after she's lived with you about a year she'll tell you East is East and West is West, an' leave you flat, takin' the baby with her." "What I have I hold. If she leaves me it will be my fault and I'll take it on the chin. I'll not be embitteredlike embit-teredlike you.'" Ham Henley turned to Mary. "What brought you boundin' out to Arizona?" "I thought a change would do me good. ' Mother's in Europe and father's fa-ther's big game shooting in British East Africa." Hamilton Henley thought: "She wants a change o' scene an' a change o' men admirers. I knew she was dangerous. Of course she kissed my son when the lights went out. Her kind ain't got no reserve. They help themselves to whatever they want." Aloud he asked, "Can you cook?" "Certainly not." "Suppose you married a feller that couldn't afford to hire a cook for you?" Margaret Maxwell noticed that Len appeared to be having difficulty subduing some slight internal disturbance. dis-turbance. She did not speak Spanish Span-ish and she did not know how this which her woman's intuition warned her was an undeclared war had started. However, she decided to find out, so to that end said, "Len, I'm not so old and stiff in the knees I wouldn't enjoy another dance with you." Then she added, "Suppose we leave these two to get better acquainted." ac-quainted." Out on the dance floor with Len she said: "I'm not color-blind, dear, : and neither is your father. That ; adorable girl kissed you." "Half a dozen times." he con-I con-I fessed with huge satisfaction. "I j slipped out and gave the' colored bar-, bar-, tender an honorarium to pull the ' electric switch for thirty seconds." (TO BE CONTINUED) "Call me Mary, Len?" something sloppy and synthetic has taken its place in the modern world?" : "Not one hundred per cent. For instance you could not possibly Induce In-duce in any man anything sloppy or synthetic. What worries me is that" "The thing to do is ascertain what this girl thinks of you, Don Leonardo, Leonar-do, and that's usually discovered by asking." "Who's talking about me? I'm discussing dis-cussing a hypothetical case." "I'm talking about you and you're not a hypothetical case. Did the girl fall in love with you at first sight?" "I don't know and I don't dare ask for sundry sound reasons." "I can appreciate them. Well, I'll set your mind at ease. The girl did fall in love with you at first sight." "How do you know?" "She couldn't help it. The girl who could help it would be a monstrosity." mon-strosity." At that instant, somewhere in the club house the fuse controlling the light circuit in the dining room and lounge blew out and they stood in inky darkness. Of course the dancing danc-ing ceased, although the trumpet-player, trumpet-player, being a wag, immediately played "Dancing In The Dark." And, fully aware that he should not do it; aware that he was getting himself him-self into deep water close to the shore; aware only that he was no longer responsible for his actions which now appeared to be controlled by an imp, Len Henley drew Mary close to him. miraculously found her face uplifted to his and kissed her three times breathlessly. "Tell me," she whispered. "Ask me." "It isn't synthetic or sloppy," he whispered back. "I'm a broken man. I'll never be the same. I love you. How about you?" "Oh, darling,I'm so glad!" Her lips came up. again and met his and he held her and she felt the hard regular beat of his heart against her breast. "Promise me you'll never grow up." she whispered, whis-pered, "and I'll always love you and never leave you." "The Spirit of the Hassyampa," he said, "makes strong medicine, doesn't he? Write your own ticket." The lights came on and the music started but in their hearts was the : music of the spheres, the melody of |