“That’s ridiculous,” was her sharp verdict. “Yes, ma’am, plumb ridiculous. My only excuse is that they began scattering lead so sudden I didn’t have time to ask many ‘Whyfors.’ I reckon we’ll just have to call it a Wyoming difference of opinion,” he concluded pleasantly. “Which means, I suppose, that you are not going to tell me.” “I got so much else to tell y’u that’s a heap more important,” he laughed. “Y’u see, I’m enjoyin’ my first automobile ride. It was certainly thoughtful of y’u to ask me to go riding with y’u, Miss Messiter.” “So you know my name. May I ask how?” was her astonished question. He gave the low laugh that always seemed to suggest a private source of amusement of his own. “I suspicioned that might be your name when I say y’u come a-sailin’ down from heaven to gather me up like Enoch.” “Why?” “Well, ma’am, I happened to drift in to Gimlet Butte two or three days ago, and while I was up at the depot looking for some freight a train sashaid in and side tracked a flat car. There was an automobile on that car addressed to Miss Helen Messiter. Now, automobiles are awful seldom in this country. I don’t seem to remember having seen one before.” “I see. You’re quite a Sherlock Holmes. Do you know anything more about me?” “I know y’u have just fallen heir to the Lazy D. They say y’u are a schoolmarm, but I don’t believe it.” “Well, I am.” Then, “Why don’t you believe it?” she added. He surveyed her with his smile audacious, let his amused eyes wander down from the mobile face with the wild-rose bloom to the slim young figure so long and supple, then serenely met her frown. “Y’u don’t look it.” “No? Are you the owner of a composite photograph of the teachers of the country?” He enjoyed again his private mirth. “I should like right well to have the pictures of some of them.” She glanced at him sharply, but he was gazing so innocently at the purple Shoshones in the distance that she could not give him the snub she thought he needed. “You are right. My name is Helen Messiter,” she said, by way of stimulating a counter fund of information. For, though she was a young woman not much given to curiosity, she was aware of an interest in this spare, broad-shouldered youth who was such an incarnation of bronzed vigor. “Glad to meet y’u, Miss Messiter,” he responded, and offered his firm brown hand in Western fashion. But she observed resentfully that he did not mention his own name. It was impossible to suppose that he knew no better, and she was driven to conclude that he was silent of set purpose. Very well! If he did not want to introduce himself she was not going to urge it upon him. In a businesslike manner she gave her attention to eating up the dusty miles.