plain, homely, unromantic patronymic of Bob McGraw. The only thing
romantic and--er--literary about Bob McGraw was his Roman-nosed
mustang, Friar Tuck--so called because he had been foaled and raised on
a wooded range near Sherwood in Mendocino county. As a product of
Sherwood forest, Mr. McGraw had very properly christened him Friar
Tuck, and as Friar Tuck's colthood home lay five hundred miles to the
north, it will be seen that Mr. McGraw was a wanderer. Hence, if the
reader is at all imaginative or inclined to the science of deduction,
he will at one mental bound, so to speak, arrive at the conclusion that
Bob McGraw, if not actually an adventurous person, was at least fond of
adventure--which amounts to the same thing in the long run. Most people
who read Robin Hood are, as witness Mr. Tom Sawyer.

The moon was coming up just as the red-headed young man from Owens
river valley rode into San Pasqual. As he approached the railroad hotel
and eating-house he saw a girl emerge, and pause for a moment before
walking out to climb aboard a track-walker's velocipede. In the light
that streamed through the open door he saw her face, framed in a tangle
of black wind-blown wisps of hair; so he reined in Friar Tuck and
stared, for he--well! Most people looked twice at Donna Corblay, and
the red-headed man was young.

So he sat his horse in the dribbling moonlight and watched her seize
the handles of the lever and glide silently off into the night. He had
been standing in the stirrups, leaning forward to look at her hands as
they grasped the lever, and now he sat back in his saddle, much
relieved.

"No wedding ring in sight" he mused. "My lady of the velocipede, I'll
marry you, or my name's not Bob McGraw."