Starr did not need a dog; certainly not that dog.  He had no goats to herd, and he could hate Mexicana without any help or encouragement when they needed hating.  But he had not grudged the trouble and expense, because Helen May needed it.  He might have earned more gratitude had he told her the truth instead of hiding it like guilt.  This was his way of going at the subject, and he waited, mind you, until he had announced nonchalantly that he must be getting along, and that he had just stopped to get a drink and to see how they were making out!

“Blame dog’s taken a notion to you.  Followed me out from town.  I throwed rocks at him till my arm ached—­”

“Why, you mean thing!  You might have hit him and hurt him, and he’s a nice dog.  Poor old purp!  Did he throw rocks, honest?  He did?  Well, just for that, I’ve got a nice ham bone that you can have to gnaw on, and he can’t have a snippy bit of it.  All he can do is eat a piece of lemon pie that will probably make him sick.  We hope so, don’t we?  Throwing rocks at a nice, ugly, stubby dog that wanted to follow!”

Starr accepted the pie gratefully and looked properly ashamed of himself.  The dog accepted the ham bone and immediately stretched himself out with his nose and front paws hugging it close, and growling threats at imaginary vandals.  Now and then he glanced up gratefully at Helen May, who continued to speak of him in a commiserating tone.

“He sure has taken a notion to you,” Starr persisted between mouthfuls.  “You can have him, for all of me.  I don’t want the blame cur tagging me around.  I’m liable to take a shot at him if I get peeved over something—­”

“You dare!” Helen May regarded him sternly from under her lashes, her chin tilted downward.  “Do you always take a shot at something when you get peeved?”

“Well, I’m liable to,” Starr admitted darkly.  “A dog especially.  You better keep him if you don’t want him hurt or anything.”  He took a bite of pie. (It was not very good pie.  The crust was soggy because Johnny Calvert’s cook stove was not a good baker, and the frosting had gone watery, because the eggs were stale, and Helen May had made a mistake and used too much sugar in the filling; but Starr liked it, anyway, just because she had made it.) “Maybe you can learn him to herd goats,” he suggested, as though the idea had just occurred to him.

“Oh, I wonder if he would!  Would you, doggums?”

“We’ll try him a whirl and see,” Starr offered cheerfully.  He finished the pie in one more swallow, handed back the plate, and wiped his fingers, man-fashion, on his trousers.

“Come on, Pat.  He likes Pat for a name,” he explained carefully to Helen May.  “I called him about every name I could think of, and that’s the one he seems to sabe most.”

“I should say he does!  Why, he left his bone when you called Pat.  Now that’s a shame, doggums!”

“Oh, well, we’ll let him polish off his bone first.”  Starr made the offer with praiseworthy cheerfulness, and sat down on his heels with his back against the adobe wall to wait the dog’s pleasure.