Starr, of the Desert

by B. M. Bower

She disappeared behind a screen, and came out with her right hand empty, evidently believing he had not seen how she had prepared herself for an emergency. She had only yesterday told him emphatically how harmless she considered the country; and he had been careful to warn her only about rabid coyotes, so that without being alarmed, she would not go unarmed away from home. It seemed queer to Starr that she should act as though she expected rabid coyotes to come a-knocking at her door in broad daylight. Had she, he thought swiftly, been only pretending that she considered the country perfectly safe?

He could not help it; that six-shooter hidden in the folds of her skirt stuck in his mind. It was just a trifle, like her lighted window at one o'clock in the morning; like that strange man who had called on her just after Starr had left her, and with whom she had seemed to be on such friendly terms. He had warned her of coyotes. She was not supposed to know that it was wise to arm herself before she opened her door to a daylight caller. At night, yes. But at seven o'clock in the morning? Starr did not suspect Helen May of anything, but he had been trained to suspect mysterious trifles. In spite of himself, this trifle nagged at him unpleasantly.

He fancied that Helen May was just a shade flustered in her welcome; just a shade nervous in her movements, in her laughter, in the very tones of her voice.

"You're out early," she said. "Vic isn't up yet; I suppose the goats ought to be let out, too. You couldn't have had your breakfast—or have you? One can expect almost anything of a man who just rides out of nowhere at all hours, and disappears into nowhere."

"I shore wish that was so," Starr retorted banteringly. "I wish I had to ride nowhere to-day."

"Oh, I meant the mystery of the unknown," she hurried to correct herself. "You come out of the desert just any old time. And you go off into the desert just as unexpectedly; by the way, did you—"

"Nope. I did not." She might forget that Vic was in the house, but Starr never forgot things of that sort, and he wilfully forestalled her intention to ask about the shooting. "I didn't have any supper, either, beyond a sandwich or two that was mostly sand after I'd packed 'em around all day. I just naturally had to turn tramp and come ask for a handout, when I found out at daylight how close I was to breakfast."

"Why, of course. You know you won't have to beg very hard. I was just going to put on the coffee. So you make yourself at home, and I'll have breakfast in a few minutes. Vic, for gracious sake, get up! Here's company already. And you'll have to let out the goats. Pat can keep them together awhile, but he can't open the gate, and I'm busy."

Starr heard the prodigious yawn of the awakening Vic, who slept behind a screen in the kitchen, bedrooms being a superfluous luxury in which Johnny Calvert had not indulged himself. Starr followed her to the doorway.

"I'll go let out the goats," he offered. "I want to take off the bridle anyway, so Rabbit can feed around a little." He let himself out into the whooping wind, feeling, for some inexplicable reason, depressed when he had expected to feel only relief.