“But you weren’t the other day,” his friend pointed out. “The other day is not to-day,” said the doctor. “In other words, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll be frank. I wouldn’t consider going at all if Mrs. Reemy weren’t taking the matter up. I think she’ll need my mature judgment in many things; and I mean to go along--if she wants me to--and give her the benefit of it.” “Nothing would delight me more than to have you go, Doctor,” Charmian said quickly. “But can you spare the time?” “I can,” he replied. “I haven’t had a real vacation in the past ten years. And it strikes me that a fellow might run across some new medicinal herbs up in your Valley of Arcana. For all we know, there may be valuable scientific phenomena in that valley that only await discovery. Your valley, Mrs. Reemy, tempts me more than the opal mines. But to find the location of the valley, it seems, we must tackle the mines. So if everything turns out satisfactorily when we get to the Shinbone Country, I’ll go partners with you on the opal project.” “Let’s make it a triple partnership,” Andy suggested. “That suits me,” said Charmian. “To be frank, I hardly wanted to go into the thing alone. This is going to be my life’s big adventure--the adventure that I have been planning for and longing for and waiting for for several years. This looks like the big opportunity at last--and I’m going to take a chance.” And here a new voice piped up. “Charmian Reemy,” said Mary Temple, “you are not going down into that hideous country with the hideous name in the company of four strange men.” “Why, old dear,” laughed Charmian, “two of them are not strangers at all.” “What two are not, please?” “Doctor Inman Shonto is known all over the United States and Europe,” Charmian pointed out. “And Mr. Jerome is his friend. What better recommendation could one ask for, Mary Temple?” “There will be four men, and only two women,” Mary told her. “And it’s--it’s all but downright indecent.” “Two women?” “Certainly. You are one, and I am one.” “Oh, you mean to go, too, then? I thought you would return to San Francisco and wait there for me.” “If you persist in going into that boneyard country, Charmian, I am going with you. And that ends that.” “Well, goodness knows you’re welcome, Mary Temple,” laughed Charmian. “But I didn’t for a minute imagine that you would care to go.” “I don’t,” snapped Mary Temple. “But that’s not saying I’m not going. And there must be two more women in the party.” “Oh, Mary Temple! What a prig you are! Do you want to pair us off?” “Common decency demands that there be as many women as there are men,” declared Mary. “We might take my wife along,” Smith Morley put in. “She’s in Los Angeles now. She could meet us at ----. Well, I’ll arrange that. But Leach hasn’t a wife--yet. Wouldn’t three women do, Miss Temple? Another person would make the two machines pretty full, you know. We’ll have a world of baggage to pile in the tonneaus and lash on the running-boards.”