, she slid back at each
upheave of the muscular rump until she slid off and to the ground in a
heap. Whereupon Spillbeans trotted off toward the water.

Carley sat up before Glenn and Flo reached her. Manifestly they were
concerned about her, but both were ready to burst with laughter. Carley
knew she was not hurt and she was so glad to be off the mustang that, on
the moment, she could almost have laughed herself.

"That beast is well named," she said. "He spilled me, all right. And I
presume I resembled a sack of beans."

"Carley--you're--not hurt?" asked Glenn, choking, as he helped her up.

"Not physically. But my feelings are."

Then Glenn let out a hearty howl of mirth, which was seconded by a
loud guffaw from Hutter. Flo, however, appeared to be able to restrain
whatever she felt. To Carley she looked queer.

"Pitch! You called it that," said Carley.

"Oh, he didn't really pitch. He just humped up a few times," replied
Flo, and then when she saw how Carley was going to take it she burst
into a merry peal of laughter. Charley, the sheep herder was grinning,
and some of the other men turned away with shaking shoulders.

"Laugh, you wild and woolly Westerners!" ejaculated Carley. "It must
have been funny. I hope I can be a good sport.... But I bet you I ride
him tomorrow."

"Shore you will," replied Flo.

Evidently the little incident drew the party closer together. Carley
felt a warmth of good nature that overcame her first feeling of
humiliation. They expected such things from her, and she should expect
them, too, and take them, if not fearlessly or painlessly, at least
without resentment.

Carley walked about to ease her swollen and sore joints, and while doing
so she took stock of the camp ground and what was going on. At second
glance the place had a certain attraction difficult for her to define.
She could see far, and the view north toward those strange gray-colored
symmetrical hills was one that fascinated while it repelled her. Near at
hand the ground sloped down to a large rock-bound lake, perhaps a mile
in circumference. In the distance, along the shore she saw a white
conical tent, and blue smoke, and moving gray objects she took for
sheep.

The men unpacked and unsaddled the horses, and, hobbling their forefeet
together, turned them loose. Twilight had fallen and each man appeared
to be briskly set upon his own task. Glenn was cutting around the foot
of a thickly branched cedar where, he t