“Sometimes--but I don't keer for that.” She cocked her hat a little audaciously, but Brice noticed that her arms afterwards dropped at her side with the same weary gesture he had observed before. “Whenever I go into shops it's always 'Yes, miss,' and 'No, miss,' and 'Certainly, Miss Dimwood.' Oh, they're mighty respectful. I reckon they allow that Snapshot Harry's rifle carries far.” Presently she faced him again, for their conversation had been carried on in profile. There was a critical, searching look in her brown eyes. “Here I'm talkin' to you as if you were one”--Mr. Brice was positive she was going to say “one of the gang,” but she hesitated and concluded, “one of my relations--like cousin Hiram.” “I wish you would think of me as being as true a friend,” said the young man earnestly. She did not reply immediately, but seemed to be examining the distance. They were not far from the canyon now, and the river bank. A fringe of buckeyes hid the base of the mountain, which had begun to tower up above them to the invisible stage road overhead. “I am going to be a real guide to you now,” she said suddenly. “When we reach that buckeye corner and are out of sight, we will turn into it instead of going through the canyon. You shall go up the mountain to the stage road, from THIS side.” “But it is impossible!” he exclaimed, in astonishment. “Your uncle said so.” “Coming DOWN, but not going up,” she returned, with a laugh. “I found it, and no one knows it but myself.” He glanced up at the towering cliff; its nearly perpendicular flanks were seamed with fissures, some clefts deeply set with stunted growths of thorn and “scrub,” but still sheer and forbidding, and then glanced back at her incredulously. “I will show you,” she said, answering his look with a smile of triumph. “I haven't tramped over this whole valley for nothing! But wait until we reach the river bank. They must think that we've gone through the canyon.” “They? “Yes--any one who is watching us,” said the girl dryly.