“Now, you know you said yourself that herders go crazy.  I don’t want to get the poor boob into trouble.  Let’s not say anything about it.  I’ve got to go now; I’ve stayed longer than I meant to, as it is.  Have Vic put that halter that’s on the saddle on the pinto, and tie the rope to it and let it drag.  He won’t go away, and you can catch him without any bother.  If Vic don’t know how to set the saddle, you take notice just how it’s fixed when you take it off.  I meant to show you how, but I can’t stop now.  And don’t go anywhere, not even to the mail box, without Pat or your six-gun, or both.  Come here, Rabbit, you old scoundrel!

“I wish I could stay,” he added, swinging up to the saddle and looking down at her anxiously.  “Don’t let Vic monkey with that automatic till I come and show him how to use it.  I—­”

“You said you were shot,” said Helen May, staring at him enigmatically from under her lashes.  “Are you?”

“Not much; burnt a streak on my arm, nothing to bother about.  Now remember and don’t leave your gun—­”

“I don’t believe it was because you licked a herder.  What made somebody shoot at you?  Was it—­on account of Pat?”

“Pat?  No, I don’t see what the dog would have to do with it.  It was some half-baked herder, shooting maybe because he heard us shoot and thought we was using him for a target.  You can’t,” Starr declared firmly, “tell what fool idea they’ll get into their heads.  It was our shooting, most likely.  Now I must go.  Adios, I’ll see yuh before long.”

“Well, but what—­”

Helen May found herself speaking to the scenery.  Starr was gone with Rabbit at a sliding trot down the slope that kept the ridge between him and the pinnacle.  She stood staring after him blankly, her hat askew on the back of her head, and her lips parted in futile astonishment.  She did not in the least realize just what Starr’s extreme caution had meant.  She had no inkling of the real gravity of the situation, for her ignorance of the lawless possibilities of that big, bare country insulated her against understanding.

What struck her most forcibly was the cool manner in which he had ordered her to act a part, and the unhesitating manner in which she had obeyed him.  He ordered her about, she thought, as though he had a right; and she obeyed as though she recognized that right.

She watched him as long as he was in sight, and tried to guess where he was going and what he meant to do, and what was his business—­what he did for a living.  He must be a rancher, since he had said he was looking for stock; but it was queer he had never told her where his ranch lay, or how far off it was, or anything about it.

After a little it occurred to her that Starr would want the man who had shot at him to think she had left that neighborhood, so she called to Pat and had him drive the goats around where they could not be seen from the pinnacle.