Dorothy’s face was troubled.  Finally she rose and picked up her gloves and hat.

“I wish some one or something would stop him,” she said slowly.  “He liked you.  All the years he has been riding up and down the country he has ridden alone, until he met you.  I’m sorry you didn’t go with him.”

“He did pretend that he was disappointed when I told him I was going to stay in San Andreas for a while.”

“You thought he was joking, but he wasn’t.  We have all tried to get him to settle down; but he would not listen.  If I were a man—­”

“Then you think I could have influenced him?” queried Bartley.

“You might have tried, at least.”

“Well, he’s gone.  And I’ll have to make the best of it—­and also find another heroine,” said Bartley lightly, trying to make her smile.

“I’ll be the heroine of your story, upon one condition,” Dorothy said, finally.

“And that is—­”

“If you will try and find Cheyenne and—­and just be a friend to him.  I suppose it sounds silly, and I would not think of asking you to try and keep him from doing anything he decided to do.  But you might happen to be able to say the right word at the right time.”

“I hardly took myself as seriously as that, in connection with Cheyenne,” declared Bartley.  “I suppose, if I should saddle up and ride south to-morrow, I might overtake him along the road, somewhere.  He travels slowly.”

“But you won’t go, just because I spoke as I did?”

“Not altogether because of that.  I like Cheyenne.”

Impetuously Dorothy stepped close to Bartley and laid her hand on his arm.  “I knew you were like that!  And what does writing about people amount to, when you can really do something for them?  It isn’t just Cheyenne.  There’s Little Jim—­”

“Yes.  But where is Little Jim?”

Dorothy called in her high, clear voice.  There was no answering halloo.  “His horse is there.  I can’t understand—­”

“I’ll look around a bit,” said Bartley.  “He’s probably ambushing us, somewhere, and expects us to be tremendously surprised.”

“I’ll catch up my horse,” said Dorothy.  “No, you had better let me catch him.  He knows me.”

And Dorothy stepped from the clearing round the spring and walked toward the horses.  They were grazing quite a ways off, up the hillside.

Bartley recalled having glimpsed Little Jim crawling through the brush on the south side of the spring.  No doubt Jimmy had grown tired of waiting, and had dropped down to the mesa on foot to hunt rabbits.  Once clear of the hillside brush, Bartley was able to overlook the mesa below.  Presently he discerned a black hat moving along slowly.  Evidently the young hunter was stalking game.

Bartley hesitated to call out.  He doubted that Jimmy could hear him at that distance.  Stepping down the gentle slope of the hillside to the road, Bartley watched Jimmy for a while, hoping that he would turn and see him.  But Jimmy was busy.  “Might as well go back and get the horses and ride over to him,” said Bartley.