She did not know what to do—­a strange sensation for Mary V, I assure you.  Once she got as far as the door, meaning to go out on the porch and tell her dad that somebody was down at Sinkhole Camp pretending that he was Johnny Jewel when he was nothing of the sort, and that the boys had better go right straight down there and see what was the matter.

She did not get farther than the door, however, and for what would seem a very trifling reason; she did not want her dad to know that she had been trying to talk to Johnny over the ’phone.

She went back to the window. Who was down there pretending to be Johnny Jewel?  And what, in heaven’s name, was he doing it for?  She remembered the Mexican who had ridden up that day and pretended that he wanted matches, and how he had returned to the camp almost as soon as she had left.  But the man who had talked with her was not a Mexican.  No one but a white man—­and a range man, she added to herself—­would say, “Uh course I knowed yore voice.”  And he had not really had a cold.  Mary V’s ears were sharper than her dad’s, for she had caught the make-believe in the hoarseness.  She knew perfectly well that Johnny Jewel might be hoarse as a crow and never talk that way.  Johnny never said “Uh course I knowed,” and Johnny would choke before he’d ever call her sweetheart.  He wouldn’t have let that man do it, either, had Johnny been present in the cabin, she suspected shrewdly.

Being an impulsive young person who acted first and did her thinking afterwards, Mary V did exactly what she should not have done.  She decided forthwith that she would take a long moonlight ride.

CHAPTER NINE

A MIDNIGHT RIDE

“Mary V, what are you doing in the kitchen?  Remember, I told you you shouldn’t make any more fudge for a week.  I don’t want any more sessions with Bedelia like I had last time you left the kitchen all messed up with your candy.  What are you doing?”

Mary V licked a dab of loganberry jelly from her left thumb and answered with her face turned toward the open window nearest the porch where her mother sat rocking peacefully.

“Oh, for gracious sake, mom!  I’m only putting up a little lunch before I go to bed.  I’m going to take my rides earlier, after this, and it wouldn’t be kind for me to wake the whole house up at daybreak, getting my lunch ready—­”

“If you’re going at daybreak, why do you need a lunch?  If you think I’ll permit you to stay out in the heat all day without any breakfast—­”

“Well, mom!  I can’t take pictures at daybreak, can I?  I’ve got to stay out till the light is strong enough.  And there’s a special place I want, and if I go early, I can get back early; before lunch, at the very latest.  Do you want me to go without anything to eat?”

“Seems to me you’re running them ‘Desert Glimpses’ into the ground,” her mother grumbled comfortably.  “You’ve got a stack higher than your head, now.  And some of these days you’ll get bit with a snake or a centipede or—­”