g under a gold-white scroll of cloud
Carley got back to Deep Lake.

A familiar lounging figure crossed her sight. It approached to where she
had dismounted. Charley, the sheep herder of Oak Creek!

"Howdy!" he drawled, with his queer smile. "So it was you-all who had
this Deep Lake section?"

"Yes. And how are you, Charley?" she replied, shaking hands with him.

"Me? Aw, I'm tip-top. I'm shore glad you got this ranch. Reckon I'll hit
you for a job."

"I'd give it to you. But aren't you working for the Hutters?"

"Nope. Not any more. Me an' Stanton had a row with them."

How droll and dry he was! His lean, olive-brown face, with its guileless
clear eyes and his lanky figure in blue jeans vividly recalled Oak Creek
to Carley.

"Oh, I'm sorry," returned she haltingly, somehow checked in her warm
rush of thought. "Stanton?... Did he quit too?"

"Yep. He sure did."

"What was the trouble?"

"Reckon because Flo made up to Kilbourne," replied Charley, with a grin.

"Ah! I--I see," murmured Carley. A blankness seemed to wave over her.
It extended to the air without, to the sense of the golden sunset. It
passed. What should she ask--what out of a thousand sudden flashing
queries? "Are--are the Hutters back?"

"Sure. Been back several days. I reckoned Hoyle told you. Mebbe he
didn't know, though. For nobody's been to town."

"How is--how are they all?" faltered Carley. There was a strange wall
here between her thought and her utterance.

"Everybody satisfied, I reckon," replied Charley.

"Flo--how is she?" burst out Carley.

"Aw, Flo's loony over her husband," drawled Charley, his clear eyes on
Carley's.

"Husband!" she gasped.

"Sure. Flo's gone an' went an' done what I swore on."

"Who?" whispered Carley, and the query was a terrible blade piercing her
heart.

"Now who'd you reckon on?" asked Charley, with his slow grin.

Carley's lips were mute.

"Wal, it was your old beau thet you wouldn't have," returned Charley,
as he gathered up his long frame, evidently to leave. "Kilbourne! He an'
Flo came back from the Tonto all hitched up."

CHAPTER XII

Vague sense of movement, of darkness, and of cold attended Carley's
consciousness for what seemed endless time.

A fall over rocks and a severe thrust from a sharp branch brought an
acute appreciation of her position, if not of her mental state. Night
had fallen. The stars were out. She had stumbled over a low ledge.
Evidently she had wandered aro