“Let them. I don’t care. Do you?”
“Ye-s. Let me think. I can’t understand. Why hasn’t Challón come back? He was here a minute ago—or was it an hour? I don’t know.” Her fingers struggled with the disorder of her hair as she smiled at him.
“Challón is a myth. I don’t believe you had a guide.”
“A myth, indeed! I wish he was—now. I wanted to go out alone, but father wouldn’t let me——”
“Mr. Loring!” Gallatin started up. “Oh, of course!” he sighed. “I had forgotten that there were such things as fathers.”
“But there are—there is—” she laughed, “a perfectly substantial father within ten miles from here.”
“You’re in camp again—in the same spot?”
She nodded.
“Any one else?” he frowned. “Not Mr. Van Duyn.”
“Oh, dear, no. Coley has gone to Carlsbad.”