"He wouldn't go away and stay like this without telling you or me. He never did before. He knows I would worry; besides, he didn't take a horse, and he never would walk ten miles when there are horses to ride. His gun isn't here, so he must have gone hunting, but he wouldn't stay all night hunting rabbits; and he couldn't be lost, when he knows the country as well as you or me." "He go to visit," the Indian woman insisted doggedly. "If he isn't home to-morrow, I'm goin' to hunt him, but I know something's wrong." V SMITH MAKES MEDICINE WITH THE SCHOOLMARM Once out of sight of the house, Smith let his horse take its own gait, while he viewed the surrounding country with the thoughtful consideration of a prospective purchaser. As he gazed, its possibilities grew upon him. If water was to be found somewhere in the Bad Lands the location of the ranch was ideal for--certain purposes. The Bar C cattle-range bounded the reservation on the west; the MacDonald ranch, as it was still called, after the astute Scotch squawman who had built it, was close to the reservation line; and beyond the sheltering Bad Lands to the northeast was a ranch where lived certain friendly persons with whom he had had most satisfactory business relations in the past. A plan began to take definite shape in his active brain, but the head of a sleepy white pony appearing above the next rise temporarily changed the course of his thoughts, and with his recognition of its rider life took on an added zest. Dora Marshall, engrossed in thought, did not see Smith until he pulled his hat-brim in salutation and said: "You're a thinker, I take it." "I find my work here absorbing," she replied, coloring under his steady look. He turned his horse and swung it into the road beside her. "I was just millin' around and thought I'd ride down the road and meet you." Further than this brief explanation, he did not seem to feel it incumbent upon him to make conversation. Apparently entirely at his ease in the silence which followed, he turned his head often and stared at her with a frank interest which he made no effort to conceal. Finally he shifted his weight to one stirrup and, turning in his saddle so that he faced her, he asked bluntly: "That look in your eyes--that look as if you hadn't nothin' to hide--is it true? Is it natural, as you might say, or do you just put it on?" Her astonished expression led him to explain. "It's like lookin' down deep into water that's so clear you can see the sand shinin' in the bottom; one of these places where there's no mud or black spots; nothin' you can't see or understand. _Sabe_ what I mean?" Since she did not answer, he continued: "I've met up with women before now that had that same look, but only at first. It didn't last; they could put it on and take it off like they did their hats."