n her eyes, he threw away his cigarette and abandoned with
it his free-and-easy manner.

"You're Miss Hunter, aren't you? I rode over to see your father. Thought
I'd find him somewhere around the corral, maybe."

"You won't, because he's gone for the day. No, I don't know where."

"I--see. Is Mr. Johnson anywhere about?"

"No, I don't believe any one is anywhere about. They were all gone when
I got up, a little while ago." Then, remembering that she did not know
this man, and that she was a long way from neighbors, she added, "If
you'll leave a message I can tell dad when he comes home."

"No-o--I'll ride over to-morrow or next day. I'm the man at Whisper. You
can tell him I called, and that I'll call again."

Still he did not go, and Lorraine waited. Some instinct warned her that
the man had not yet stated his real reason for coming, and she wondered
a little what it could be. He seemed to be watching her covertly, yet
she failed to catch any telltale admiration for her in his scrutiny. She
decided that his forehead was too narrow to please her, and that his
eyes were too close together, and that the lines around his mouth were
cruel lines and gave the lie to his smile, which was pleasant enough if
you just looked at the smile and paid no attention to anything else in
his face.

"You had quite an experience getting out here, they tell me," he
observed carelessly; too carelessly, thought Lorraine, who was well
schooled in the circumlocutions of delinquent tenants, agents of various
sorts and those who crave small gossip of their neighbors. "Heard you
were lost up in Rock City all night."

Lorraine looked up at him, startled. "I caught a terrible cold," she
said, laughing nervously. "I'm not used to the climate," she added
guardedly.

The man fumbled in his pocket and produced smoking material. "Do you
mind if I smoke?" he asked perfunctorily.

"Why, no. It doesn't concern me in the slightest degree." Why, she
thought confusedly, must she _always_ be reminded of that horrible place
of rocks? What was it to this man where she had been lost?

"You must of got there about the time the storm broke," the man hazarded
after a silence. "It's sure a bad place in a thunderstorm. Them rocks
draw lightning. Pretty bad, wasn't it?"

"Lightning is always bad, isn't it?" Lorraine tried to hold her voice
steady. "I don't know much about it. We don't have thunderstorms to
amount to anything, in Los Angeles. It sometimes do