horse. But she tempered his joy a bit by urging him to keep
an eye on Pat, who had been acting very queer.

"He kept ruining up his back and showing his teeth at Mr. Sommers," she
explained nervously. "If he does it when you go, Vic, and if he foams at
the mouth, you'd better shoot him before he bites something. If a mad dog
bites you, you'll get hydrophobia, and bark and growl like a dog, and
have fits and die."

"G-oo-d _night_!" Vic ejaculated fervently, and went loping awkwardly
down the trail past the spring.

That left Helen May alone and free to think about the horrors that might
come up out of Mexico, and about the ignorant Mexicans who, until they
are uplifted, are bad. It seemed strange that, if this were true, Starr
had never mentioned the danger. And yet--

"I'll bet anything that's just what Starr-of-the-Desert did mean!" she
exclaimed aloud, her eyes fixed intently on the toes of her scuffed
boots. "He just didn't want to scare me too much and make me suspicious
of everybody that came along, and so he talked mad coyotes at me. But it
was Mexicans he meant; I'll bet anything it was!"

If that was what Starr meant, then the shot from the pinnacle, and
Starr's crafty, Indian-like method of getting away unseen, took on a
new and sinister meaning. Helen May shivered at the thought of Starr
riding away in search of the man who had tried to kill him, and of the
risk he must be taking. And what if the fellow came back, sneaking back
in the dark, and tried to get in the house, or something? It surely was
lucky that Starr-of-the-Desert had just happened to bring those guns.

But had he just _happened_ to bring them? Helen May was not stupid, even
if she were ignorant of certain things she ought to know, living out
alone in the wild. She began to see very clearly just what Starr had
meant; just how far he had _happened_ to have extra guns in his shack,
and had just _happened_ to get hold of a horse that she and Vic could
use; and the dog, too, that hated Mexicans!

"That's why he hates to have me stay on the claim!" she deduced at last.
"Only he just wouldn't tell me right out that it isn't safe. That's what
he meant by asking if dad knew the chances I'd have to take. Well, dad
didn't know, but after the price dad paid, why--I've got to stay, and
make good. There's no sense in being a coward about it. Starr wouldn't
want me to be a coward. He's just scheming around to make it as safe as
he can, without making