The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-12-11
CHAPTER I. "hiGI<nrS

was crimson with the sunset. Inside the room, every corner was filled with gay fantOmS of the age of Chlvalry- Jac would not raise her head, for if she kept her eyes upon the printed pages it seemed to her that the arm ored knights were dropping about her rooms. A board creaked. That was from the cunning of some striped page with pointed toes. The wind made d soft rustIiGI. That was the stir of the nodding plumes of the warriors.
 The pageantry of forgotten kings flowed brightly about her.
 "Jac."
 Jacqueline frowned and shrugged her shoulders.
 She raised her head The dreary board walls of her room looked back at her, empty, barren, a thousand miles and @ thousand years from all romance. She closed her book as the door of her room opened and her father stood in the entrance.
 ''Readin' again!' said Jim During in infinite disgust. "Go down an wait drunk. I've give him the run. Hur-
 She shied the book into a corner
 How many here for chow?" she asked.
 Maurice Gordon an lot of others said her father. start nor
 She started Handsome Maurice Gordon! She had only to close her eyes and there he stood in armor- Sir Maurice de Gordon!
 You might have combed the cattle ranges for five hundred miles, north, east, south, and west, and never found so fine a figure of man as Maurice Gordon Good looks are rather handicap than a blessing in the noun tain desert, but Maurice" Gordon was notably ready at all times for anything from a dance to fight, and his reputation was accordingly as high among men as among women
 He made @ stir wherever he went, and now as he sat in the dining room of Jim DUring'S crossroads hotel, 2 Il eyes were upon him. He w1thstood their critical admiration with the non chalant good nature of one who knew that from his silk bandanna to his fine riding boots, his outfit represented the beau-ideal of the cow-puncher.
 Where you bound for?" asked the proprietor of the hotel as the supper drew to it's close.
 'T'he dance over to Brideweu." said Maurice "Damnationn'
 For as he mentioned the dance, Jac, who was bringing him his second cup of coffee, started so violently that a drop of the hot liquid splashed on the back of Matrices neck.
 "Oh!" she cried. and seiezd her apron to wipe away the coffee.
 "Scuse me- growled Maurice, see ing that he had sworn at a woman.
 
 With that he stopped the hand which was bearing the soiled apron toward his neck, and produced from his pocket-m marvellous to behold a of stainless white, with which he rubbed away the coffee.
 "JacqueIine!" rumbled her father, and his accent made the name far more emphatic than Matrices "Dam- uation.'
 That was her given title, but to every cow-puncher on the range she was known as "Jac" During, who rode, shot and sometimes swore as was Jacqueline to her father alone, and to him only at such a time as this.
 "Well?'' she said belligerently. and her eyes fixed on her father as stead fly and as angrily as those of a man:
 "Your hands was made for feet! Go back to the kitchen. We don't need you till the boys is through with their coffee. Too bad, Maurie."
 "Nothin' at all!" said the latter heartily. and waved the matter out of existence.
 He might banish Jac from his not drive away her thoughts of him so easily, it seemed; for she stopped in the shadow of the doorway which led into the kitchen and stared back with big eyes at the cow-puncher.
 ''Who you takin' to the dancer" said her father.
 Dolly Maxwell" said Maurie, nam- ing the prettiest girl in many, many miles.
 That pa1e-faced-t thing" muttered Jac relapsfng into a feminine vocabu- lary at this crisis. But she sighed as she turned back into the kitchen. stove so that the light famed on her red hair. which was tied in a hard knot on the top of her head -| the quickest, easiest, and unQuestion- l~1 rF hair. A vast and unreaSoning rage made her blood hot.
 The anger was partly for her own blunder in spilling the hot coffee. It was even more because of Maurie's ejaculation. With that one word he had banished the vision of Sir Maurice de Gordon. The plumed helmet had fallen from his head; his bright arm 'ty. In the fury of her chagrin Jac caught up the poker and raked the grate of the stove loudly The rat tling helped to relieve her as swear midst of the racket she heard a chuckle from the dining room, and her blood went cold at the thought that some one might understand the depth of her shame and wrath.
 She ran to the door. There she sighed again, but 1t was relief this time. At least it was not Maurie who laughed He was deep in conversa-
  the other faces with a quick glance that halted at a pair of bright, quizzic- al eyes. Only one man had aPPar- ently understood the meaning of her racket at the stove.
 '"That bum!" said Jac, and turned on her heel.
 But something made her stop and look back. Perhaps it was the bright ness of those eyes; certainly nothing else could have made her look twice at this fellow. Even among tho. rough citizens of the mountain desert he was wild and ragged. His shirt was soiled and frayed from elbow to wrist. A bush of black hair was so long that it almost entirely hid his ears and his face, apparently un- touched by a razor for months, was covered by a tremendous growth of whiskers. She could only guess at the features behind that mask.
 It was very puZzling but Jac would not waste time thinking of such caricature of Q man as he Of the many zUbfSlye-S She turned back iDrO