uldn't. In the first place, her dad
would ask her what she was doing on Black Ridge, which was far beyond her
permitted range of activities. Her dad would foolishly maintain that she
could glimpse all the desert necessary without going that far from the
ranch. In the second place, he would probably tell her that he was paying
Tex to ride the range and, if he met a Mexican, it was his business to
send that same Mexican back where he came from. In the third place, he
would think she was riding over there for a reason which was untrue and
very, very unjust. And he wouldn't fire Tex, because Tex was a good
"hand" and hands were hard to find. He would simply make her promise
to stay at home.

"He'd say it was perfectly all right for Tex--and perfectly all wrong for
me. Dad's _tremendously_ pin-headed where I am concerned. So I suppose
I'll just have to say nothing, and ride all that long way in the hot sun
to make sure that horrid Johnny Jewel is not being murdered or something.
It doesn't, of course, concern me personally at all--but dad is _so_
short-handed this summer. And he actually _threatened_ that he couldn't
afford me a new car this winter if wages go up or horses go down, or
anything happens that doesn't just please him. And I suppose Johnny Jewel
has his uses, in the general scheme of dad's business, so even if he is a
mean, conceited little shrimp personally, I'll have to go and make sure
he isn't killed, because it would be just like dad to call that bad luck,
and grouch around and not get me the car."

Mary V had barely reached this goal of personal unconcern for anything
but her own private interests, when Tango began to manifest certain
violent symptoms of having seen or heard something very disagreeable.
Mary V had to take some long, boyish steps in order to snatch his reins
before he bolted and left her afoot, which would have been a real
calamity. But she caught him, scolded him shrewishly and slapped his
cheek until he backed from her wall-eyed, and then she mounted him and
went clattering down off the ridge without having seen any snake dens at
all. Doubtless the boys had lied to her, as usual.

To Sinkhole Camp was a long way, much longer than it had looked from the
top of Black Ridge. Mary V, her face red with heat, hurried on and on,
wishing over and over that she had never started at all, but lacking the
resolution to turn back. Yet she was considered a very resolute young
woman by those who knew h