They chatted awhile.  Suddenly Alice thought of the letters Lorry had given her.  She had carried them to her room, and had forgotten them.

“Mr. Adams left some mail with me last night.  I happened to be outside when he rode past.”

“Why, I thought he had gone!”

“He said he had to go to Jason for something or other.  He left early this morning, I think.”

Dorothy glanced at the mail.  “All for daddy—­except this circular.  H’m!  ‘Intelligent clothing for Intelligent People.’  Isn’t that awful?  How in the world do such firms get one’s address when one lives ’way up here in the sky.  Do you ever get advertisements like this?”

“Oh, yes; heaps of them.”

“Well, your gowns are beautiful,” sighed Dorothy.

“You are a darling,” said Alice, caressing Dorothy’s cheek.

“So are you, dear.”  And Dorothy kissed her.  “And you coaxed Lorry to come to dinner, after all!  I don’t know what made him so grumpy, though.  I would have been sorry if he hadn’t come to dinner, even if he was grumpy.”

“Do you like him?” queried Alice.

“Of course; he has been so nice to us.  Don’t you?”

Alice’s lips trembled.  Suddenly she hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.

“Why, Alice, what is the matter?”

“Nothing,” she sobbed.  “I’m just tired—­of everything.”

“It must be the altitude,” said Dorothy gravely.  “Father says it does make some persons nervous.  Just rest, Allie, and I’ll come in again.”

Without telling her father anything further than that she was going for a ride, Dorothy saddled Chinook.

Dorothy was exceedingly trustful, but she was not at all stupid.  She thought she understood Alice’s headache.  And while Dorothy did not dream that her friend cared anything for Lorry, she was not so sure that Lorry did not care for Alice.  Perhaps he had said something to her.  Perhaps they had become rather well acquainted in Stacey last summer.

Dorothy rode toward the Big Spring.  She had no definite object in view other than to be alone.  She was hurt by Lorry’s incomprehensible manner of leaving.  What had she done to cause him to act so strangely?  And why had he refused her invitation and accepted it again through Alice?  “But I’ll never, never let him know that I care about that,” she thought.  “And when he comes back everything will be all right again.”

Just before she reached the Big Spring her pony nickered.  She imagined she could see a horse standing back of the trees round the spring.  Some ranger returning to Jason or some cattle outfit from the south was camped at the spring.  But when Chinook nickered again and the other pony answered, she knew at once that Lorry was there.  Why had he stopped at the spring?  He had started early enough to have made a camp farther on.

Lorry saw her coming, and busied himself adjusting one of the packs.  As she rode up he turned and took off his hat.  His face was flushed.  His eyes did not meet hers as she greeted him.