cryin' and beggin' me to get him out of there."

"Albuquerque?" queried Louise.

"Uhuh. Later, comin' acrost the Mojave, we got thrun off a freight by
mistake for a couple of sewin'-machines that we was ridin' with to
Barstow, so the tickets on the crates said. That was near Daggett, by a
water-tank. It was hotter than settin' on a stove in Death Valley at 12
o'clock Sunday noon. We beat it for the next town, afoot. Collie
commenced to give out. He was pretty tender and not strong. I lugged him
some and he walked some. He was talkin' of green grass and cucumbers in
the ice-box and ice-cream and home and the Maumee River, and a whole lot
of things you can't find in the desert. Well, I got him to his feet next
mornin'. We had some trouble, and was detained a spell in Barstow after
that. They couldn't prove nothin', so they let us go. Then Collie got to
talkin' again about a California road that wiggled up a hill and through
a canon, and had one of these here ole Mission bells where it lit off
for the sky-ranch. Funny, for he was never in California then. Mebby it
was the old post-card he got at Albuquerque. You see his pa bought it
for him 'cause he wanted it. He was only a kid then. Collie, he says
it's the only thing his pa ever did buy for him, and so he kept it till
it was about wore out from lookin' at it. But considerin' how his pa
acted, I guess that was about all Collie needed to remember him by.
Anyhow, he dreamed of that road, and told me so much about it that I
got to lookin' for it too. I knowed of the old El Camino Real and the
bells, so we kept our eye peeled for that particular dream road, kind of
for fun. We found her yesterday."

"What, this? The road to our ranch?"

"Uhuh. Collie, he said so the minute we got in that canon, Moonstone
Canon, you said. We're restin' up and enjoyin' the scenery. We need the
rest, for only last week we resigned from doin' a stunt in a
movin'-picture outfit. They wanted somebody to do native sons. We said
we didn't have them kind of clothes, but the foreman of the outfit says
we'd do fine jest as we was. It was fierce--and, believe me, lady, I
been through some! I been through some!

"They was two others in checker clothes and dip-lid caps, and they
_wasn't_ native sons. They acted like sons of--I'd hate to tell you
what, Miss--to the chief dollie in the show. They stole her beau and
tied him to the S. P. tracks; kind of loose, though. She didn't seem to
care. She jest