“Since ten this morning. I came with my aunt to gather poppies, and somehow I got separated from her and the rig. These hills look so alike. I must have got turned round and mistaken one for another.” “You have to be awful careful here. Some one ought to have told you,” he said indignantly. “Oh, they told me, but of course I knew best,” she replied, with quick scorn of her own self-sufficiency. “Well, it’s all right now,” the cowpuncher told her cheerfully. He would not for a thousand dollars have told her how near it had come to being all wrong, how her life had probably depended upon that faint wafted call of hers. He put her on his horse and led it forward to the spot where the cattle waited at the gateway. Not until they came full upon them did he remember that it was dangerous for strange young women to see him with those cattle and at the gateway to the Hidden cañon. “They are my uncle’s cattle. I could tell the brand anywhere. Are you one of his riders? Are we close to the Rocking Chair Ranch?” she cried. He flung a quick glance at her. “Not very close. Are you from the Rocking Chair?” “Yes. I’m Mr. Mackenzie’s niece.” “Major Mackenzie’s daughter?” demanded the man quickly. “Yes.” She said it with a touch of annoyance, for he looked at her as a man does who has heard of her before. She knew that the story had been bruited far and wide of how she had passed through the hands of the train robbers carrying thirty thousand dollars on her person. She had no doubt that it was in this connection her rescuer had heard of her. He drew off to one side and called his companion to him. “Hardman, you ride up to the ranch and tell Leroy I’ve just found Miss Mackenzie wandering around on the desert, lost. Ask him whether I’m to bring her up. She’s played out and can’t travel far, tell him.” The showman rode on his errand and the other returned to Helen. “You better light, ma’am. We’ll have to wait here a few minutes,” he explained. He helped her dismount. She did not understand why it was necessary to wait, but that was his business and not hers. Her roving eyes fell upon the cattle again. “They _are_ my uncle’s, aren’t they?” “They were,” he corrected. “Cattle change hands a good deal in this country,” he added dryly. “Then you’re not one of his riders?” Her stark eyes passed over him swiftly. “No, ma’am.” “Are we far from the Rocking Chair?” “A right smart distance. You’ve been traveling, you see, for eight or nine hours.”