"What a stupid I am!" Harry exclaimed, as she watched the man ride away in the distance. "I didn't remember to ask him where Jones was, or where he found the colts, or anything. I wonder whether anything can be wrong--whether he arrested Jones?" She turned away. A swarm of new, strange fears had suddenly sprung to life to torment her. CHAPTER IX Standing in the door of the tent, Harry stared out over the desert where the Sheriff had disappeared. "Dear me!" she exclaimed. "It seems that out here in the desert you have to know more and think quicker and be generally all-around smarter to be good for anything than you do back East, where every one is supposed to know everything that's worth while." All during the afternoon, no matter what she happened to be doing, her thoughts returned to that curious and not very flattering conclusion. She recalled to mind the different people she had met in the short time she had been in Idaho. They had all been "onto their job," as they would have said. Even when they were not naturally qualified for their work, they were self-reliant and resourceful. Harry's great desire now was to find a way to help Rob. She looked round the vast expanse of untilled acres; neither her hand nor her brain was yet capable of attacking that work. She turned and surveyed the inside of the tent, and the spirit of all her New England ancestors rose up in protest within her. Gazing helplessly at the dishes of half-eaten food, the piles of canned goods, the eggs and butter heaped under the table because there was no other place for them, she saw in her mind her New England home, with its cellars, cupboards, storerooms, and pantries. Of all the housekeeping necessities for which this chaotic tent cried to her, it cried loudest for a pantry. Who could keep house without a pantry? What, she wondered, had Mrs. Robinson done for a pantry when she had started housekeeping in her one-room "shack"? Harry's thoughts shifted to the ranch house, and the Robinsons' cheerful slapdash way of doing the day's work. She remembered helping Vashti bring in the butter and milk from the side-hill cellar. A cellar! Laughing, Harry ran down to the garden. She came back with the shovel and grub hoe, and went on to the stream where the bank rose steeply on the other side into the slope of the hill. At first her enthusiasm made the work seem easy. It was fun to drag the stones from the bank, to tear out roots and bushes, and gradually to see a cave shape itself. Of course it would be only a miniature cave, just large enough to hold a wooden packing box on end; but she could keep there butter and eggs and milk, and perhaps a few dishes. Before she realized it the sun was low, the pigs were squealing for their supper, and her hands were badly blistered.