“It ain’t right for you to be out here afoot,” said Starr, as though he had read her thoughts.  “It’s bad enough for you to be here at all.  What ever possessed you to do such a crazy thing, anyhow?”

“Well, sometimes people can’t choose.  Dad got the notion first.  And then—­when he died—­Vic and I just went ahead with it.”

“Did he know anything about this country?  Did he know—­what chances you’d be taking?” Starr was trying to choose his words so that they would impress her without alarming her.  It angered him to have to worry over the girl’s welfare and to keep that worry to himself.

“What chances, for gracious sake?  I never saw such a mild, perfectly monotonous life.  Why, there are more chances in Los Angeles every time a person goes down town.  It’s deadly dull here, and it’s too lonesome for words, and I hate it.  But as for taking chances—­” Her voice was frankly contemptuous of the idea.

“Chances of going broke.  It takes experience—­”

“Oh, as to that, it’s partly a matter of health,” said Helen May lightly.  “I have to live where the climate—­”

“You could live in Albuquerque, or some other live town; close to it, anyway.  You don’t have to stick away down here, where—­”

“I don’t see as it matters.  So long as it isn’t Los Angeles, no place appeals to me.  And dad had bought the improvements here, so—­”

“I’ll pay you for the improvements, if that’s all,” Starr said shortly.

Helen May laughed.  “That sounds exactly as though you want to get me out of the country,” she challenged.

Starr did not rise to the bait.  He took another long look for the horseman, saw not so much as a flurry of dust, and slid the glasses into their case.

“I brought out that carbine I was speaking about.  And the shells that go with it.  I’m kind of a gun fiend, I guess.  I’m always accumulating a lot of shooting irons I never use.  I run across a six-shooter and belt, too.  Come here, Rabbit!”

Rabbit came, and Starr untied the weapons, smiling boyishly.  “You may as well be using ’em; they’ll only rust, kicking around in the shack.  Buckle this around you.  I punched another hole or two, so the belt would come within a mile or so of fitting.  You want to wear that every time you go out on the range.  The time you leave it home is the very time when you’ll see a coyote or something.

“And if you expect to get rich in the goat business, you never want to pass up a coyote.  There’s a bounty on ’em, for one thing, because they do lots of damage among sheep and goats.  And for another,” he added impressively, “the rabies that’s been epidemic on the Coast is spreading.  You’ve maybe read about it.  A rabid coyote would come right at you, and you know the consequences.  Or it would bite Pat, and then Pat would tackle you.”

“Oh!” Helen May had turned a sickly shade.  Her eyes went anxiously over the slope as though she half expected something of the sort to happen then and there.