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 at Colby's ranch down in the Nation—you know where it is?"

"No, ma'am, I don't."

"It's twenty-five or thirty miles below the line. Colby married my cousin. She's part Indian, so am I."

"You don't tell me!"

"I guess that's why I wasn't worried when I lost the trail and got kind of turned around down there in the hills."

"Where were you headin' for, Miss?"

"Cottonwood."

"It's close on to sixty miles from here, due north. You was headin' east."

"Well, I knew I'd come out somewhere."

"Yes, I guess you would."

He didn't believe her, unsuspecting as his nature was. There was nothing at all uncommon in a woman of the range country undertaking a ride like that, through a section where there was little danger to be met, but a woman whom her relatives would trust to such an undertaking would not be the one to ride east when her road lay to the north. She interrupted his perplexing thought.

"Is there any water around here? I'm dying for a drink."

"There's a spring branch along a couple of miles. I was aimin' to camp there to-night."