He could not help it; that six-shooter hidden in the folds of her skirt stuck in his mind.  It was just a trifle, like her lighted window at one o’clock in the morning; like that strange man who had called on her just after Starr had left her, and with whom she had seemed to be on such friendly terms.  He had warned her of coyotes.  She was not supposed to know that it was wise to arm herself before she opened her door to a daylight caller.  At night, yes.  But at seven o’clock in the morning?  Starr did not suspect Helen May of anything, but he had been trained to suspect mysterious trifles.  In spite of himself, this trifle nagged at him unpleasantly.

He fancied that Helen May was just a shade flustered in her welcome; just a shade nervous in her movements, in her laughter, in the very tones of her voice.

“You’re out early,” she said.  “Vic isn’t up yet; I suppose the goats ought to be let out, too.  You couldn’t have had your breakfast—­or have you?  One can expect almost anything of a man who just rides out of nowhere at all hours, and disappears into nowhere.”

“I shore wish that was so,” Starr retorted banteringly.  “I wish I had to ride nowhere to-day.”

“Oh, I meant the mystery of the unknown,” she hurried to correct herself.  “You come out of the desert just any old time.  And you go off into the desert just as unexpectedly; by the way, did you—­”

“Nope.  I did not.”  She might forget that Vic was in the house, but Starr never forgot things of that sort, and he wilfully forestalled her intention to ask about the shooting.  “I didn’t have any supper, either, beyond a sandwich or two that was mostly sand after I’d packed ’em around all day.  I just naturally had to turn tramp and come ask for a handout, when I found out at daylight how close I was to breakfast.”

“Why, of course.  You know you won’t have to beg very hard.  I was just going to put on the coffee.  So you make yourself at home, and I’ll have breakfast in a few minutes.  Vic, for gracious sake, get up!  Here’s company already.  And you’ll have to let out the goats.  Pat can keep them together awhile, but he can’t open the gate, and I’m busy.”

Starr heard the prodigious yawn of the awakening Vic, who slept behind a screen in the kitchen, bedrooms being a superfluous luxury in which Johnny Calvert had not indulged himself.  Starr followed her to the doorway.

“I’ll go let out the goats,” he offered.  “I want to take off the bridle anyway, so Rabbit can feed around a little.”  He let himself out into the whooping wind, feeling, for some inexplicable reason, depressed when he had expected to feel only relief.

“Lord!  I’m getting to the point where anything that ain’t accompanied by a chart and diagrams looks suspicious to me.  She’s got more hawse sense than I gave her credit for, that’s all.  She musta seen through my yarnin’ about them mad coyotes.  She’s pretty cute, coming to the door with her six-gun just like a real one!  And never letting on to me that she had it right handy.  I must be getting off my feed or something, the way I take things wrong.  Now her being up late—­I’m just going to mention how far off I saw her light burning—­and how late it was.  I’ll see what she says about it.”