When she got back to the camp in the cedars the rider was there, on his knees, kindling the fire.  His clean-shaved face and new apparel made him vastly different.  He was young, and, had he not been so gaunt, he would have been fine-looking, Lucy thought.

“Wildfire remembered me,” Lucy burst out.  “He wasn’t a bit scary.  Let me handle him.  Followed me to water.”

“He’s taken to you,” replied the rider, seriously.  “I’ve heard of the like, but not so quick.  Was he in a bad fix when you got to him yesterday?”

Lucy explained briefly.

“Aha! . . .  If that red devil has any love in him I’ll never get it.  I wish I could have done so much for him.  But always when he sees me he’ll remember.”

Lucy saw that the rider was in difficulties.  He could not bend his back, and evidently it pained him to try.  His brow was moist.

“Let me do that,” she said.

“Thanks.  It took about all my strength to get into this new outfit,” he said, relinquishing, his place to Lucy.

When she looked up from her task, presently, he was sitting in the shade of the cedar, watching her.  He had the expression of a man who hardly believed what he saw.

“Did you have any trouble gettin’ away, without tellin’—­about me?” he asked.

“No.  But I sure had a job with those packs,” she replied.

“You must be a wonder with a horse.”

As far as vanity was concerned Lucy had only one weakness—­and he had touched upon it.

“Well, Dad and Holley and Farlane argue much about me.  Still, I guess they all agree I can ride.”

“Holley an’ Farlane are riders?” he questioned.

“Yes, Dad’s right-hand men.”

“Your dad hires many riders, I supposed?”

“Sure I never heard of him turning any rider down, at least not without a try.”

“I wonder if he would give me a job?”

Lucy glanced up quickly.  The idea surprised her—­pleased her.  “In a minute,” she replied.  “And he’d be grand to you.  You see, he’d have an eye for Wildfire.”

The rider nodded his head as if he understood how that would be.

“And of course you’d never sell nor trade Wildfire?” went on Lucy.

The rider’s smile was sad, but it was conclusive.

“Then you’d better stay away from Bostil,” returned Lucy, shortly.

He remained silent, and Lucy, busy about the campfire, did not speak again till the simple fare was ready.  Then she spread a tarpaulin in the shade.

“I’m pretty hungry myself,” she said.  “But I don’t suppose I know what hunger is.”

“After a while a fellow loses the feelin’ of hunger,” he replied.  “I reckon it’ll come back quick. . . .  This all looks good.”

So they began to eat.  Lucy’s excitement, her sense of the unreality of this adventure, in no wise impaired her appetite.  She seemed acutely sensitive to the perceptions of the moment.  The shade of the cedars was cool.  And out on the desert she could see the dark smoky veils of heat lifting.  The breeze carried a dry odor of sand and grass.  She heard bees humming by.  And all around the great isolated monuments stood up, red tops against the blue sky.  It was a silent, dreaming, impressive place, where she felt unlike herself.