Kate stared straight ahead: "How absurd!" she exclaimed with cold contempt for his conclusions, yet feeble in her sarcasm against his penetration.
"All I want to say is," he continued, remounting, "that I see you can ride. You don't have to cover much country to prove that. You ride like a Western girl—and talk like an Eastern girl. Which are you?"
She unfeelingly closed all inquiries: "Both," she answered indifferently. "Let's head for the bottoms; about two miles from here there's a spring—good water."
He looked skeptical: "If you can show me good water near here, I'll be learning something. I didn't know there was a water hole within ten miles—but I don't know this lower country as well as my own."
"What is your own?"
He pointed to the Northeast to where a range of snow-capped peaks rose above from the desert: "Those are the Lodge Pole mountains. That's where the Falling Wall river begins—where you see that snow. It circles clear around the range, crosses the Reservation to the West and opens South into a high basin—that's my country—the Falling Wall. Then the river cuts out of there through the canyon we're talking about and gets away to the West again." Coming a step nearer to her he pointed again: "Now look close to the left of that strip of timber. You can just see a break above it—that's the high point of the canyon. A long time ago there was a mining camp in those mountains—Horsehead—they started to build a railroad up there—did a lot of grading and put in the abutments for a bridge across the canyon. Before they got the road built the camp played out; they never finished it. All that country below there is the Falling Wall."
"Are they all thieves and outlaws over there?"
He started a little in spite of himself and took his time to reply: "It must have been a thief or an outlaw that put that idea in your head," he observed finally.
"Oh, no, it was Tom Stone."
His expression changed into contempt: "I didn't need but one guess."