The girl inclined her head very slightly and turned toward Conniston.

“If you have come all the way from the hills this morning,” she was saying, “and if you plan to go on to Crawfordsville, you will want to rest until the cool of the evening.  We have eleven-o’clock luncheon in summer, and have already eaten.  But if you will come in I think that we can find something.  And, anyway, you can rest until evening.  If you are not in a hurry to go right on?”

“We have all the time in the world!” Conniston hastened to assure her.  And Hapgood of the aching muscles added fervently, “If it’s more than a mile to Crawfordsville, I’ve got to rest awhile!”

“It is something more than that.”  She rose and moved toward the house.  “Through the short cut straight back into the mountains it’s twenty.”

Lonesome Pete was turning to drive toward a gap in the encircling trees when the girl called to him to take Conniston’s horse.  And then the three went to the house.

The flight of steps led them to a wide veranda, eloquent of comfort with its deep wicker rockers and hammocks piled temptingly with cushions.  Then came the wide double doors, and, within, a long, high-ceilinged room whose appointment in every detail spoke of wealth and taste and the hand of a lavish spender.  And into this background the slender form of the girl in the close-fitting, becoming gown entered as harmoniously as it had the other day when clad in khaki and against a background of limitless desert.

The floor here was of hard wood, polished until it shone dully like a mirror in a shaded room.  No rugs save the two great bear-skins, one black, the other white; no pictures beyond the one great painting against the farther wall.  There was a fire-place, wide and deep and rock-bound.  And yonder, a dull gleam as of ebony, a grand piano.  Leather chairs, all elegant, soft, luxurious.

She would leave them here, she said, smiling, and see if there was anything left to eat.  And while they marveled at finding the splendid comfort of Fifth Avenue here on the far rim of the desert, a little Japanese boy in snowy linen bowed himself in to them and invited them to follow.  They went down a long hallway after his softly pattering footsteps and were shown into a large airy bath-room, with a glimpse beyond of a cozy sitting-room.

“You wish prepare for luncheon, honorable sirs,” said the boy, his teeth and eyes shining in one flash.  “You find rest-room there.  I call for you.  Anything?”

Conniston told him that there was nothing further required, and he withdrew, stepping backward as from royalty, bowing deeply.

“Here’s where I lose about half of the desert I’ve been carrying around with me,” muttered Hapgood.  “The Lord knows when we’ll see another tub!”

Luxury of luxuries!  The bath-room was immaculate in white tiling, the tub shone resplendently white, and there was steaming-hot water!  Conniston, having strolled into the “rest-room,” where he found a deep leather chair with a table close to its elbow decorated simply but none the less effectively with a decanter of whisky and a silver box containing cigarettes, leaned back, enjoying himself and the sound of the splashing in the bath-room.