"Well, you know," he said carefully, "a scorpion sting may or may not be serious. People have died of them. Mrs. Jack here makes no more of them than of a mosquito bite, while Jack goes about like a drunken sailor with one for a day, then forgets it. Miss Tuttle will be all right when she wakes up. I'm off till dinner time, Mrs. Jack. Jack will think I've reverted!" DeWitt stood for a moment watching the tall, lithe figure move through the peach-trees. He was torn by a strange feeling, half of aversion, half of charm for the dark young stranger. Then: "Hold on, Cartwell," he cried. "I'll drive you back in the buckboard." Katherine Newman, looking after the two, raised her eyebrows, shook her head, then smiled and went back to Rhoda. It was mid-afternoon when Rhoda woke. Katherine was sitting near by with her sewing. "Well!" said Rhoda wonderingly. "I'm all right, after all!" Katherine jumped up and took Rhoda's thin little hand joyfully. "Indeed you are!" she cried. "Thanks to Kut-le!" "Thanks to whom?" asked Rhoda. "It was a tall young man. He said his name was Charley Cartwell." "Yup!" answered Katherine. "Charley Cartwell! His other name is Kut-le. He'll be in to dinner with Jack, tonight. Isn't he good-looking, though!" "I don't know. I was so dizzy I couldn't see him. He seemed very dark. Is he a Spaniard?" "Spaniard! No!" Katherine was watching Rhoda's languid eyes half mischievously. "He's part Mescallero, part Pueblo, part Mohave!" Rhoda sat erect with flaming face. "You mean that he's an Indian and I let him carry me! Katherine!" The mischief in Katherine's brown eyes grew to laughter. "I thought that would get a rise out of you, you blessed tenderfoot! What difference does that make? He rescued you from a serious predicament; and more than that he's a fine fellow and one of Jack's dearest friends." Rhoda's delicate face still was flushed. "An Indian! What did John DeWitt say?" "Oh!" said Katherine, carelessly, "he offered to drive Kut-le back to the ditch, and he hasn't got home yet. They probably will be very congenial, John being a Harvard man and Kut-le a Yale!" Rhoda's curved lips opened, then closed again. The look of interest died from her eyes. "Well," she said in her usual weary voice, "I think I'll have a glass of milk, if I may. Then I'll go out on the porch. You see I'm being all the trouble to you, Katherine, that I said I would be." "Trouble!" protested Katherine. "Why, Rhoda Tuttle, if I could just see you with the old light in your eyes I'd wait on you by inches on my knees. I would, honestly." Rhoda rubbed a thin cheek against the warm hand that still held hers, and the mute thanks said more than words.