Five minutes later the Buick was rocking and rolling north again with two extra passengers, and the older man was making conversation from the other end of the front seat.
“I suppose we ought to introduce ourselves. My name is Don Morland, and this is my daughter Jean.”
“I’m Simon Templar,” said the Saint.
The name meant nothing immediately to them, and was not meant to. But he had known who they were before he lay down to wait for them not long after breakfast, behind the pulpit of erupted boulders which had already merged into the violet-shaded diorama behind.
“I’m sure glad you happened along,” Morland went on. “I wouldn’t have enjoyed trying to find my way home from there if we’d been caught after dark.”
“That doesn’t sound like a rancher talking,” Simon remarked lightly.
“I’m not really a rancher — of course you could tell that. I just happen to own a ranch. As a matter of fact, we’ve only been here a couple of days. It’s all quite an accident.”
Simon grinned.
“You won the Circle Y in a raffle?”
“It belonged to my brother. He died just recently, and I inherited it. I was a dentist in Richmond, Virginia. I’d been thinking I was about ready to retire, and Jean always wanted to see the West. So we thought we’d give it a trial.”