Starr did not say.  Naturally, since she was a girl, and pretty, and since he was human, he was busy wondering what her chum’s brother was like.  He picked up a small rock and shied it at a goat that was not doing a thing that it shouldn’t do, and felt better.  He remembered then that at any rate her chum’s brother was a long way off, and that he himself had nothing much to complain of right now.  Then Helen May spoke again and shifted his thoughts to another subject.

“I believe I’d rather have a horse like this,” she said, “than own that big, lovely take-me-to-glory car that was pathfinding around like a million dollars, a little while ago.  I’ll own up now that I was weeping partly because four great big porky men could ride around on cushions a foot thick, while a perfectly nice girl had to plough through the sand afoot.  The way they skidded past me and buried me in a cloud of dust made me mad enough to throw rocks after them.  Pigs!  They never even stopped to ask if I wanted a ride or anything.  They all glared at me through their goggles as if I hadn’t any business walking on their desert.”

“Did you know them?” Starr came and walked beside her, glancing frequently at her face.

“No, of course I didn’t.  I don’t know anybody but the stage driver.  I wouldn’t have ridden with them, anyway.  From what I saw of them they looked like Mexicans.  But you’d think they might have shown some interest, wouldn’t you?”

“I sure would,” Starr stated with emphasis.  “What kinda car was it, did you notice?  Maybe I know who they are.”

“Oh, it was a great big black car.  They went by so fast and I was so tired and hot and—­and pretty near swearing mad, I didn’t notice the number at all.  And they were glaring at me, and I was glaring at them, and then the driver stepped on the accelerator just at a little crook in the road, and the hind wheels skidded about a ton of sand into my face and they were gone, like they were running from a speed cop.  I’d much rather have a nice little automatic pony like this one,” she added feelingly.  “You don’t have to bundle yourself up in dusters and goggles and things when you take a ride, do you?  It—­it makes the bigness of the country, and the barrenness of it, somehow fit together and take you into the pattern, when you ride a horse over it, don’t you think?”

“I guess so,” Starr assented, with an odd little slurring accent on the last word which gave the trite sentence an individual touch that appealed to Helen May.  “It don’t seem natural, somehow, to walk in a country like this.”

“Oh, and you’ve got to, while I ride your horse!  Or, have you got to?  Is it just movie stuff, where a man rides behind on a horse, and lets the girl ride in front?  I mean, is it feasible, or just a stunt for pictures?”

“Depends on the horse,” Starr evaded.  “It’s got the say-so, mostly, whether it’ll pack one person or two.  Rabbit will, and when I get tired walking, I’ll ride.”