She stepped back to regard her handiwork. "Now you look better!" she said approvingly. Then, slightly flurried, not without a memory of a previous and not dissimilar remark of hers, she was off up the hill: whence, despite his shocked protest, she brought back the lost gun and hat. Her eyes were sparkling when she returned, her face glowing. Ignoring his reproachful gaze, she wrung out her handkerchief, led the patient firmly down the hill and to his saddle, made him trim off a saddle-string, and bound the handkerchief to the wound. She fitted the sombrero gently. "There! Don't this head feel better now?" she queried gayly, with fine disregard for grammar. "And now what? Won't you come back to camp with me? Mr. Lake will be glad to put you up or to let you have a horse. Do you live far away? I do hope you are not one of those Rosebud men. Mr. La----" She bit her speech off midword. "No men there except this Mr. Lake?" asked the cowboy idly. "Oh, yes; there's Mr. Herbert--he's gone riding with Lettie--and Mr. White; but it was Mr. Lake who got up the camping party. Mother and Aunt Lot, and a crowd of us girls--La Luz girls, you know. Mother and I are visiting Mr. Lake's sister. He's going to give us a masquerade ball when we get back, next week." The cowboy looked down his nose for consultation, and his nose gave a meditative little tweak. "What Lake is it? There's some several Lakes round here. Is it Lake of Aqua Chiquite--wears his hair decollete; talks like he had a washboard in his throat; tailor-made face; walks like a duck on stilts; general sort of pouter-pigeon effect?" At this envenomed description, Miss Ellinor Hoffman promptly choked. "I don't know anything about your Aqua Chiquite. I never heard of the place before. He is a banker in Arcadia. He keeps a general store there. You must know him, surely." So far her voice was rather stern and purposely resentful, as became Mr. Lake's guest; but there were complications, rankling memories of Mr. Lake--of unwelcome attentions persistently forced upon her. She spoiled the rebuke by adding tartly, "But I think he is the man you mean!" and felt her wrongs avenged. The cowboy's face cleared. "Well, I don't use Arcadia much, you see. I mostly range down Rainbow River. Arcadia folks--why, they're mostly newcomers, health-seekers and people just living on their incomes--not working folks much, except the railroaders and lumbermen. Now about getting home. You see, ma'am, some of the boys are riding down that way"--he jerked his thumb to indicate the last flight of the imperfectly gentle horse--"and they're right apt to see my runaway eohippus and sure to see the rope-drag; so they'll likely amble along the back track to see how much who's hurt. So I guess I'd better stay here. They may be along most any time. Thank you kindly, just the same. Of course, if they don't come at all----Is your camp far?"