go to the coast for a while and let me run the ditch. But he won't. He's as pig-headed as a Mohave."

"Are the Mohaves so pig-headed then?" asked DeWitt, smiling.

Cartwell returned the smile with a flash of white teeth.

"You bet they are! My mother was part Mohave and she used to say that only the Pueblo in her kept her from being as stiff-necked as yucca. You're all over the dizziness, Miss Tuttle?"

"Yes," said Rhoda. "You were very good to me."

Cartwell shook his head.

"I'm afraid I can't take special credit for that. Will you two ride to the ditch with me tomorrow? I think Miss Tuttle will be interested in Jack's irrigation dream, don't you, Mr. DeWitt?"

DeWitt answered a little stiffly.

"It's out of the question for Miss Tuttle to attempt such a trip, thank you."

But to her own as well as DeWitt's astonishment Rhoda spoke protestingly.

"You must let me refuse my own invitations, John. Perhaps the ditch would interest me."

DeWitt replied hastily, "Good gracious, Rhoda! If anything will interest you, don't let me interfere."

There was protest in his voice against Rhoda's being interested in an Indian's suggestion. Both Rhoda and Cartwell felt this and there was an awkward pause. This was broken by a faint halloo from the corral and DeWitt rose abruptly.

"I'll go down and meet Jack," he said.

"We'll do a lot of stunts if you're willing," Cartwell said serenely, his eyes following DeWitt's broad back inscrutably. "The desert is like a story-book if one learns to read it. If you would be interested to learn, I would be keen to teach you."

Rhoda's gray eyes lifted to the young man's somberly.

"I'm too dull these days to learn anything," she said. "But I—I didn't used to be! Truly I didn't! I used to be so alive, so strong! I believed in everything, myself most of all! Truly I did!" She paused, wondering at her lack of reticence.

Cartwell, however, was looking at her with something in his gaze so quietly understanding that Rhoda smiled. It was a slow smile that lifted and deepened the corners of Rhoda's lips, that darkened her gray eyes to black, an unforgetable smile to the loveliness of which Rhoda's friends never could accustom themselves. At the sight of it, Cartwell drew a deep breath, then leaned toward her and spoke with curious earnestness.

"You make me feel the same way that starlight on the desert makes me feel."

Rhoda replied in astonishment, "Why, you mustn't speak that way to me! It's not—not—"

"Not conventional?" suggested Cartwell. "What difference does that make, between you and me?"

Again came the strange stirring in Rhoda in response to Cartwell's gaze. He was looking at her with something of tragedy in the dark young eyes, something of sternness and determination in the clean-cut lips. Rhoda wondered, afterward, what would have been said if Katherine had not chosen this moment to come out on the porch.

"Rhoda," she asked, "do you feel like dressing for dinner? Hello, Kut-le, it's time you moved toward soap and water, seems to me!"

"Yessum!" replied Cartwell meekly. He rose and helped Rhoda from the hammock, then held the door open for her. DeWitt and Newman emerged from the orchard as he crossed to Katherine's chair.

"Is she very sick, Mrs. Jack?" he asked.

Katherine nodded soberly.

"Desperately sick. Her father and mother were killed in a railroad wreck a year ago. Rhoda wasn't seriously hurt but she has never gotten over the shock. She has been failing ever since. The doctor feared consumption and sent her down here. But she's just dying by inches. Oh, it's too awful! I can't believe it! I can't realize it!"

Cartwell stood in silence for a moment, his lips compressed, his eyes inscrutable.

Then, "I've met her at last," he said. "It makes me believe in Fate."

Katherine's pretty lips parted in amazement.

"Goodness! Are you often taken this way!" she gasped.

"Never before!" replied Cartwell serenely. "Jack said she'd broken her engagement to DeWitt because of her illness, so it's a fair war!"

"Kut-le!" exclaimed Katherine. "Don't talk like a yellow-backed novel! It's not a life or death affair."

"You can't tell as to that," answered Cartwell with a curious little smile. "You mustn't forget that I'm an Indian."

And he turned to greet the two men who were mounting the steps.

CHAPTER II

THE CAUCASIAN WAY

When Rhoda entered the dining-room some of her pallor seemed to have left her. She was dressed in a gown of an elusive pink that gave a rose flush to the marble fineness of her face.

Katherine was chatting with a wiry, middle-aged man whom she introduced to Rhoda as Mr. Porter, an Arizona mining man. Porter stood as if stunned for a moment by Rhoda's delicate loveliness. Then, as was the custom of every man who met Rhoda, he looked vaguely about for something to do for her. Jack Newman forestalled him by taking Rhoda's hand and leading her to the table. Jack's curly blond hair looked almost white in contrast with his tanned face. He was not as tall as either Cartwell or DeWitt but he was strong and clean-cut and had a boyish look despite the heavy responsibilities of his five-thousand-acre ranch.

"There," he said, placing Rhoda beside Porter; "just attach Porter's scalp to your belt with the rest of your collection. It'll be a new experience to him. Don't be afraid, Porter."

Billy Porter was not in the least embarrassed.

"I've come too near to losing my scalp to the Apaches to be scared by Miss Tuttle. Anyhow I gave her my scalp without a yelp the minute I laid eyes on her."

"Here! That's not fair!" cried John DeWitt. "The rest of us had to work to get her to take ours!"

"Our what?" asked Cartwell, entering the room at the last word. He was looking very cool and well groomed in white flannels.

Billy Porter stared at the newcomer and dropped his soup-spoon with a splash. "What in thunder!" Rhoda heard him mutter.

Jack Newman spoke hastily.

"This is Mr. Cartwell, our irrigation engineer, Mr. Porter."

Porter responded to the young Indian's courteous bow with a surly nod, and proceeded with his soup.

"I'd as soon eat with a nigger as an Injun," he said to Rhoda under cover of some laughing remark of Katherine's to Cartwell.

"He seems to be nice," said Rhoda vaguely. "Maybe, though, Katherine is a little liberal, making him one of the family."

"Is there any hunting at all in this open desert country?" asked DeWitt. "I certainly hate to go back to New York with nothing but sunburn to show for my trip!"

"Coyotes, wildcats, rabbits and partridges," volunteered Cartwell. "I know where there is a nest of wildcats up on the first mesa. And I know an Indian who will tan the pelts for you, like velvet. A jack-rabbit pelt well tanned is an exquisite thing too, by the way. I will go on a hunt with you whenever the ditch can be left."

"And while they are chasing round after jacks, Miss Tuttle," cut in Billy Porter neatly, "I will take you anywhere you want to go. I'll show you things these kids never dreamed of! I knew this country in the days of Apache raids and the pony express."

"That will be fine!" replied Rhoda. "But I'd rather hear the stories than take any trips. Did you spend your boyhood in New Mexico? Did you see real Indian fights? Did you—?" She paused with an involuntary glance at Cartwell.

Porter, too, looked at the dark young face across the table and something in its inscrutable calm seemed to madden him.

"My boyhood here? Yes, and a happy boyhood it was! I came home from the range one day and found my little fifteen-year-old sister and a little neighbor friend of hers hung up by the back of their necks on butcher hooks. They had been tortured to death by Apaches. I don't like Indians!"

There was an awkward pause at the