nd a dandy way to get up on her, if that's what's wanted." Starr
looked at his watch and gave up all hope of catching the next eastbound
train, if that had really been his purpose. He lifted his hat and drew
his fingers across his forehead where the perspiration stood in beads,
resettled the hat at an angle to shade his face from the glare of the
sun, ran two fingers cursorily between the cinch and Rabbit's sweaty
body, picked up the stirrup, thrust in his toe and eased himself up into
the saddle; and his mind had not consciously directed a single movement.

"Well, they've left one mark behind 'em that fair hollers," he stated, in
so satisfied a tone that Rabbit turned his head and looked back at him
inquiringly. Starr, you must know, was not given to satisfied tones when
he and Rabbit were enduring the burden of heat and long miles. "And you
needn't give me that kinda look, neither. Take a look at them tire
tracks, you ole knot-head. Them's Silvertown cords, and they ain't
equipping jitneys with cord tires--not yet. Why, yo're whole carcass
ain't worth the price uh one tire, let alone four, you old sheep. You
show me the car in this country that's sportin' Silvertowns all around,
and I'll show you--"

Just what he would show, Starr did not say, because he did not know. But
there was something there which might be called a mystery, and where
there was mystery there was Starr, working tirelessly on the solution.
This might be a trivial thing; but until he knew beyond all doubt that it
was trivial, Starr pushed other matters, such as a young woman afraid of
a horned toad, out of his mind that he might study the puzzle from all
possible angles.

CHAPTER SIX

"DARN SUCH A COUNTRY!"

Helen May stood on the knobby, brown rock pinnacle that formed the head
of Sunlight Basin and stared resentfully out over the baked desert and
the forbidding hills and the occasional grassy hollows that stretched
away and away to the skyline. So clear was the air that every slope,
every hollow, every acarpous hilltop lay pitilessly revealed to her
unfriendly eyes, until the sheer immensity of distance veiled its
barrenness in a haze of tender violet. The sky was blue; deeply,
intensely blue, with little clouds like flakes of bleached cotton
floating aimlessly here and there. In a big, wild, unearthly way it was
beautiful beyond any words which human beings have coined.

Helen May felt its bigness, its wildness, perhaps also its bea