he
perversely removed herself to another spot where she would not be seen.
And there she sat, out of sight from below and thus fancying herself
undiscovered, refusing so much as a sly glance around her granite shield.

For if there was anything which Helen May hated more than another it was
the possibility of being thought cheaply sentimental, mushy, as the
present generation vividly puts it. Also she was trying to break herself
of humming that old desert love-song all the while. Vic was beginning to
"kid" her unmercifully about it, for one thing. To think that she should
sing it without thinking a word about it, just because she happened to
see a little dust! She would not look. She would not!

Starr might have passed her by and gone on to the cabin if he had not,
through a pair of powerful binoculars, been observing her when she sent
Pat off, and when she got up and went over to the other ledge and sat
down. Through the glasses he had seen her feet crossed, toes up, just
past the nose of the rock, and he could see the spread of her skirt.
Luckily, he could not read her mind. He therefore gave a yank at the
lead-rope in his hand and addressed a few biting remarks to a
white-lashed, blue-eyed pinto trailing reluctantly behind Rabbit; and
rode forward with some eagerness toward the ridge.

"'Sleep?" he greeted cheerfully, when he had forced the two horses to
scramble up to the shade of the ledge, and had received no attention
whatever from the person just beyond. The tan boots were still crossed,
and not so much as a toe of them moved to show that the owner heard him.
Starr knew that he had made noise enough, so far as that went.

"Why, no, I'm not asleep. What is it?" came crisply, after a
perceptible pause.

"It ain't anything at all," Starr retorted, and swung Rabbit into the
shade which Helen May had left. He dismounted, sat himself down with his
back against a rock, and proceeded to roll a cigarette. By no means
would he intrude upon the privacy of a lady, though the quiet, crossed
feet and the placid folds of the khaki skirt told him that she was
sitting there quietly--pouting about something, most likely, he diagnosed
her silence shrewdly. Well, it was early, and so long as he reached a
certain point by full dark, he was not neglecting anything. As a matter
of fact, he told himself philosophically, he really wanted to kill half a
day in a perfectly plausible manner. There was no hurry, no hurry at all.

Pat