"Oh, now, that's hardly--when I did it because of what you said." "Well, then, I promise to be nice to you until events do us part. That will be in about five minutes. Over there is Dry Fork Gulch. The waterhole is just down around this hill." Ashton took his ardent gaze off the girl's face long enough to glance to his left. He recognized the tremendous gorge in the face of the mountain side that he had tried to ascend the previous day. It ran in with a moderately inclined bottom for nearly a mile, and then scaled up to the top of High Mesa in steep slopes and sheer ledges. His eyes followed the dry gravelly creek bed around to the right, and he nodded: "Yes, my camp is just over the corner of those crags. But surely, Miss Knowles, you will not end our acquaintance there." She met his appealing look with a level glance. "Seriously, Mr. Ashton, don't you think you had better move camp to another section? It seems to me you have done quite enough unseasonable deer hunting." Without waiting for him to reply, she urged her horse into a lope. His own mount was too jaded for a quick start. When he overtook the girl she had rounded the craggy hill on their right and was in sight of a scattered grove of boxelders below a dike of dark colored trap rock that outcropped across the bed of the creek. Above the natural dam made by this dike the valley was bedded up with sand and large gravel washed down by the torrential rush of spring freshets. Below it the same wild floods, leaping down in a twenty-foot fall, had gouged out a pothole so wide and deep that it was never empty of water even in the driest seasons. CHAPTER V INTO THE DEPTHS At the top of the bank made by the dike the girl pointed with her quirt down to the rock-rimmed pool edge where a pair of riders were just swinging out of their saddles. "Hello, Daddy! We're coming, Kid," she called, and she turned to explain to Ashton. "They came around the other end of the hills; a longer way but better going. How's this? Thought you said you were camped here." "Yes, of course. Don't you see the tent? It's right there among the--Why, what--where is it?" cried Ashton, gaping in blank amazement. "We'll soon see," replied the girl. Their horses were scrambling down the short steep slope to the pool, where the other horses were drinking their fill of the cool water. The two men watched Ashton's approach, Knowles with an impassive gaze, Gowan with cold suspicion in his narrowed eyes. "Well, honey," asked the cowman, "did you have him pulling leather?" "No, and I didn't lose him, either," she replied, with a mischievous glance at Gowan. "I took that jump-off where the white-cheeked steer broke its neck. He took it after me without pulling leather." "Huh!" grunted the puncher. "Mr. Tenderfoot shore is some rider. We're waiting for him now to ride around and find that camp where we were to deliver his veal."