“Well, that makes up for some of the rocks,” Helen May approved generously, “and for some of the names you say you called him.  And that reminds me, Man of the Desert, I suppose you have a name of some sort.  I never heard what it was.  Is it—­Smith, perhaps?”

“My name’s Starr,” he told her, with a little glow under the tan of his cheeks.  “S, t, a, double r, Starr.  I forgot I never told you.  I’ve got a couple of given names, but I’d want to shoot a man that called me by ’em.  Folks always call me just Starr, and maybe a few other things behind my back.”

Helen May dropped her chin and looked at him steadily from under her eyebrows.  “If there’s anything that drives me perfectly wild,” she said finally, “it’s a mystery.  I’ve just simply got to know what those names are.  I’ll never mention them, honest.  But—­”

“Chauncy DeWitt,” Starr confessed.  “Forget ’em.  They was wished onto me when I wasn’t able to defend myself.”

“Given names are horrid things, aren’t they?” Helen May sympathized.  “I think mine is perfectly imbecile.  Fathers and mothers shouldn’t be allowed to choose names for their children.  They ought to wait till the kids are big enough to choose for themselves.  If I ever have any, I’ll call them It.  When they grow up they can name themselves anything they like.”

“You’ve got no right to kick,” Starr declared bluntly.  “Your name suits you fine.”

His eyes said more than that, so that Helen May gave her attention to the dog.  “There, now, you’ve licked it and polished it and left teeth marks all over it,” she said, meaning the bone.  “Come on, Pat, and let’s see if you’re a trained doggums.”  She looked up at Starr and smiled.  “Suppose he starts running after them; he might chase them clear off the ranch, and then what?”

“I guess the supply of rocks’ll hold out,” Starr hinted, and snapped his fingers at the dog, which went to heel as a matter of course.

“If you throw rocks at that dog, I’ll throw rocks at you,” Helen May threatened viciously.

“And I’ll hit, and you’ll miss,” Starr added placidly.  “Come on, let’s get busy and see if you deserved that bone.”

Helen May had learned from uncomfortable experience that high-heeled slippers are not made for tramping over rocks and sand.  She said that she would come as soon as she put on some shoes; but Starr chose to wait for her, though he pretended, to himself as much as to her, that he must take the bridle off Rabbit and let him pick a few mouthfuls of grass while he had the chance.  Also he loosened the cinch and killed a fly or two on Rabbit’s neck, and so managed to put in the time until Helen May appeared in her khaki skirt and her high boots.

“That’s the sensible outfit for this work,” Starr plucked up courage to comment as they started off.  “That kid brother of yours must get pretty lonesome too, out here,” he added.  “If you had some one to stay with you, I’d take him out on a trip with me once in a while and show him the country and let him learn to handle himself with a horse and gun.  A fellow’s got to learn, in this country.  So have you.  How about it?  Ever shoot a gun, either of you?”