well-made covert coat and dainty driving gauntlets. The grace of the
alert, slender figure, the perfect poise of the beautiful little tawny
head, proclaimed her distinction no less certainly than the fine modeling
of the mobile face. It was a distinction that stirred the pulse of his
emotion and disarmed his keen, critical sense. Ridgway could study her
with an amused, detached interest, but Hobart's admiration had traveled
past that point. He found it as impossible to define her charm as to evade
it. Her inheritance of blood and her environment should have made her a
finished product of civilization, but her salty breeziness, her nerve,
vivid as a flame at times, disturbed delightfully the poise that held her
when in repose.

When Virginia spoke, it was to ask abruptly: "Is it really his mine?"

"Judge Purcell says so."

"But do YOU think so--down in the bottom of your heart?"

"Wouldn't I naturally be prejudiced?"

"I suppose you would. Everybody in Mesa seems to have taken sides either
with Mr. Ridgway or the Consolidated. Still, you have an option. Is he
what his friends proclaim him--the generous-hearted independent fighting
against trust domination? Or is he merely an audacious ore-thief, as his
enemies say? The truth must be somewhere."

"It seems to lie mostly in point of view here the angle of observation
being determined by interest," he answered.

"And from your angle of observation?"