course. Don't you see the tent? It's right there among
the--Why, what--where is it?" cried Ashton, gaping in blank
amazement.

"We'll soon see," replied the girl.

Their horses were scrambling down the short steep slope to the pool,
where the other horses were drinking their fill of the cool water. The
two men watched Ashton's approach, Knowles with an impassive gaze,
Gowan with cold suspicion in his narrowed eyes.

"Well, honey," asked the cowman, "did you have him pulling leather?"

"No, and I didn't lose him, either," she replied, with a mischievous
glance at Gowan. "I took that jump-off where the white-cheeked steer
broke its neck. He took it after me without pulling leather."

"Huh!" grunted the puncher. "Mr. Tenderfoot shore is some rider. We're
waiting for him now to ride around and find that camp where we were to
deliver his veal."

Ashton stared with a puzzled, half-dazed expression from the tentless
trees beside him to the fore and hind quarters of veal wrapped in
slicker raincoats and fastened on back of the men's saddles.

"Well?" demanded Knowles. "Thought you said you were camped here."

"I am--that is, I--My tent was right there between those two trees,"
said Ashton. "You see, there are the twigs and leaves I had my valet
collect for my bed."

"Shore--valleys are great on collecting beds of leaves and sand and
bowlders," observed Gowan.

"There's his fireplace," said the girl, wheeling her horse through a
clump of wild rosebushes. "Yes, and he's right about the tent, too. It
is a bed. Here's a dozen cigarette boxes and--What's this, Mr. Ashton!
Looks as if someone had left a note for you."

"A note?" he muttered, slipping to the ground.

He ran over to the spot to which she was pointing. On a little pile of
stones, in front of where his tent had been pitched, a piece of
coarse wrapping paper covered with writing was fluttering in the light
breeze. He snatched it up and read the note with fast-growing
bewilderment.

"What is it?" sympathetically questioned the girl, quick to see that
he was in real trouble.

He did not answer. He did not even realize that she had spoken. With
feverish haste he caught up an opened envelope that had lain under the
paper. Drawn by his odd manner, Knowles and Gowan came over to stare
at him. He had torn a letter from the envelope. It was in typewriting
and covered less than a page, yet he gaped at it, reading and
re-reading the lines as if too dazed to be ab