“What can she do?” he thought resentfully, feeling as if he had been offered a willow switch with which to fight off a grizzly. It seemed to him that he might as sensibly go to Evadna herself for assistance, and that, even his infatuation was obliged to admit, would be idiotic. Peppajee, he told himself when he reached his horse, was particularly foolish sometimes. With that in his mind, he mounted--and turned Keno's head toward Hartley. The distance was not great--little more than half a mile--but when he swung from the saddle in the square blotch of shade east by the little, red station house upon the parched sand and cinders, Keno's flanks were heaving like the silent sobbing of a woman with the pace his master's spurred heels had required of him. Miss Georgie gave her hair a hasty pat or two, pushed a novel out of sight under a Boise newspaper, and turned toward him with a breezily careless smile when he stepped up to the open door and stopped as if he were not quite certain of his own mind, or of his welcome. He was secretly thinking of Peppajee's information that Miss Georgie thought he was “bueno,” and he was wondering if it were true. Not that he wanted it to be true! But he was man enough to look at her with a keener interest than he had felt before. And Miss Georgie, if one might judge by her manner, was woman enough to detect that interest and to draw back her skirts, mentally, ready for instant flight into unapproachableness. “Howdy, Mr. Imsen?” she greeted him lightly. “In what official capacity am I to receive you, please? Do YOU want to send a telegram?” The accent upon the pronoun was very faint, but it was there for him to notice if he liked. So much she helped him. She was a bright young woman indeed, that she saw he wanted help. “I don't believe I came to see you officially at all,” he said, and his eyes lighted a little as he looked at her. “Peppajee Jim told me to come. He said you're a 'heap smart squaw, all same mans.'” “Item: One pound of red-and-white candy for Peppajee Jim next time I see him.” Miss Georgie laughed--but she also sat down so that her face was turned to the window. “Are you in urgent need of a heap smart squaw?” she asked. “I thought”--she caught herself up, and then went recklessly on--“I thought yesterday that you had found one!” “It's brains I need just now.” After the words were out, Good Indian wanted to swear at himself for seeming to belittle Evadna. “I mean,” he corrected quickly--“do you know what I mean? I'll tell you what has happened, and if you don't know then, and can't help me, I'll just have to apologize for coming, and get out.” “Yes, I think you had better tell me why you need me particularly. I know the chicken's perfect, and doesn't lack brains, and you didn't mean that she does. You're all stirred up over something. What's wrong?” Miss Georgie would have spoken in just that tone if she had been a man or if Grant had been a woman. So Good Indian told her.