you can't get
a stateroom."

He smiled. "The president of the road might get a stateroom. I doubt if
anybody else could even land an upper. Of course I'll do my best. But
it's a question when there'll be another train through."

"What ails your road?" she demanded indignantly. "Is it just stuck
together with glue?"

"You've never seen this desert country when it springs a leak. It can
develop a few hundred Niagaras at the shortest notice of any place I
know."

"But it isn't leaking now," she objected.

He turned his face to the softly diffused sunlight. "To be continued.
The storm isn't over yet, according to the way I feel about it. Weather
reports say so, too."

"Then take me for a walk!" she cried. "I'm tired of rain and I want to
go over and lean against that lovely white mountain."

"Well, it's only sixty miles away," he answered. "Perhaps you'd better
take some grub along or you might get hungry."

"Aren't you coming with me?"

"This is my busy morning. If it were afternoon, now--"

"Very well. Since you are so urgent, I _will_ stay to luncheon. I'll
even get it up myself if you'll let me into the shack."

"That's a go!" said Banneker heartily. "What about your horse?"

"I walked over."

"No; did you?" He turned thoughtful, and his next observation had a
slightly troubled ring. "Have you got a gun?"

"A gun? Oh, you mean a pistol. No; I haven't. Why should I?"

He shook his head. "This is no time to be out in the open without a gun.
They had a dance at the Sick Coyote in Manzanita last night, and
there'll be some tough specimens drifting along homeward all day."

"Do you carry a gun?"

"I would if I were going about with you."

"Then you can loan me yours to go home with this afternoon," she said
lightly.

"Oh, I'll take you back. Just now I've got some odds and ends that will
take a couple of hours to clear up. You'll find plenty to read in the
shack, such as it is."

Thus casually dismissed, Io murmured a "Thank you" which was not as meek
as it sounded, and withdrew to rummage among the canned edibles drawn
from the inexhaustible stock of Sears-Roebuck. Having laid out a
selection, housewifely, and looked to the oil stove derived from the
same source, she turned with some curiosity to the mental pabulum with
which this strange young hermit had provided himself. Would this, too,
bear the mail-order imprint and testify to mail-order standards? At
first glance the answer appeared to be a