“He kept ruining up his back and showing his teeth at Mr. Sommers,” she explained nervously.  “If he does it when you go, Vic, and if he foams at the mouth, you’d better shoot him before he bites something.  If a mad dog bites you, you’ll get hydrophobia, and bark and growl like a dog, and have fits and die.”

“G-oo-d night!” Vic ejaculated fervently, and went loping awkwardly down the trail past the spring.

That left Helen May alone and free to think about the horrors that might come up out of Mexico, and about the ignorant Mexicans who, until they are uplifted, are bad.  It seemed strange that, if this were true, Starr had never mentioned the danger.  And yet—­

“I’ll bet anything that’s just what Starr-of-the-Desert did mean!” she exclaimed aloud, her eyes fixed intently on the toes of her scuffed boots.  “He just didn’t want to scare me too much and make me suspicious of everybody that came along, and so he talked mad coyotes at me.  But it was Mexicans he meant; I’ll bet anything it was!”

If that was what Starr meant, then the shot from the pinnacle, and Starr’s crafty, Indian-like method of getting away unseen, took on a new and sinister meaning.  Helen May shivered at the thought of Starr riding away in search of the man who had tried to kill him, and of the risk he must be taking.  And what if the fellow came back, sneaking back in the dark, and tried to get in the house, or something?  It surely was lucky that Starr-of-the-Desert had just happened to bring those guns.

But had he just happened to bring them?  Helen May was not stupid, even if she were ignorant of certain things she ought to know, living out alone in the wild.  She began to see very clearly just what Starr had meant; just how far he had happened to have extra guns in his shack, and had just happened to get hold of a horse that she and Vic could use; and the dog, too, that hated Mexicans!

“That’s why he hates to have me stay on the claim!” she deduced at last.  “Only he just wouldn’t tell me right out that it isn’t safe.  That’s what he meant by asking if dad knew the chances I’d have to take.  Well, dad didn’t know, but after the price dad paid, why—­I’ve got to stay, and make good.  There’s no sense in being a coward about it.  Starr wouldn’t want me to be a coward.  He’s just scheming around to make it as safe as he can, without making me cowardly.”

A slow, half-tender smile lit her chestnut-tinted eyes, and tilted her lips at the corners.  “Oh, you desert man o’ mine, I see through you now!” she said under her breath, and kept on smiling afterwards, since there was not a soul near to guess her thoughts.  “Desert man o’ mine” was going pretty strong, if you stop to think of it; but Helen May would have died—­would have lied—­would have gone to any lengths to keep Starr from guessing she had ever thought such a thing about him.  That was the woman of her.