Rhoda struggled for calm.

“We nearly died the first day,” she said.  “But we did very well after we reached the mesa.”

Kut-le smiled to himself.  It was hard even for him to realize that this plucky girl who passed so simply over such an ordeal as he knew she must have endured could be the Rhoda of the ranch.  But he said only: 

“We’ll make for the timber line and let you rest for a while.”

At mid-morning they left the desert and began to climb a rough mountain slope.  At the pinon line, Kut-le called a halt.  Never before had shade seemed so good to Rhoda as it did now.  She lay on the pine-needles looking up into the soft green.  It was unspeakably grateful to her eyes which had been so long tortured by the desert glare.  She lay thus for a long time, her mental pain for a while lost in the access of physical comfort.  Shortly Molly, who had been working rapidly, brought her a steaming bowl of stew.  Rhoda ate this, then with her head pillowed on her arm she fell asleep.

She was wakened by Molly’s touch on her arm.  It was late afternoon.  Rhoda looked up into the squaw’s face and drew a quick hard breath as realization came to her.

“Molly!  Molly!” she cried.  “I’m in terrible, terrible trouble, Molly!”

The squaw looked worried.

“You no go away!  Kut-le heap sorry while you gone!”

But Rhoda scarcely heeded the woman’s voice.  She rolled over with her hot face in the fragrant needles and groaned.

“O Molly!  Molly!  I’m in terrible trouble!”

“What trouble?  You tell old Molly!”

Rhoda sat up and stared into the deep brown eyes.  Just as Kut-le had become to her the splendor of the desert, so had Molly become the brooding wisdom of the desert.  With sudden inspiration she grasped the Indian woman’s toil-scarred hands.

“Listen, Molly!  Before I knew Kut-le, I was going to marry the white man, DeWitt.  And after he stole me I hated Kut-le and I hated the desert.  And now, O Molly, I love both Kut-le and the desert, and I must marry the white man!”

“Why?  You tell Molly why?”

“Because he is white, Molly, like me.  Because he loves me so and has done so much for me!  But most of all because he is white!”

Molly scowled.

“Because Kut-le is Injun, you no marry him?”

Rhoda nodded miserably.

“Huh!  And you think you so big, Kut-le so big that Great Spirit care if you marry white, marry Injun.  All Great Spirit care is for every squaw to have papoose.  Squaw, she big fool to listen to her head.  Squaw, she must always listen to her heart, that is Great Spirit talking.  Your heart, it say marry Kut-le!”

Molly paused and looked at the girl, who sat with stormy eyes on the sinking sun.  And she forgot her hard-earned wisdom and was just a heart-hungry woman.

“You stay!  Stay with Kut-le and old Molly!  You so sweet!  You like little childs!  You lie in old Molly’s heart like little girl papoose that never came to Molly.  You stay!  Always, always, Molly will take care of you!”