“There’s the water tank,” she suggested, with a little laugh.

“Isn’t there somebody where you come from?”

The girl shook her head quite positively.

“There must be some one in this God-forsaken country who would take a stranger in! I don’t care about spending the night out here.”

The girl laughed as if it were all a great joke. “There won’t be nobody to hurt you, stranger.”

“Thanks!”

She started on her road. Brainard thought he was in for a night in the open and cursed his folly in jumping off into the desert. But the girl pulled up after a few steps, and he could hear her gay chuckle as she called out:

“You sure did want to stay in Arizona bad—you lost six trains!”

“I meant to!”

“That mining business must be very important.”