“All right. You stay where you are.”
As he stepped to the door and rapped, Peggy opened it, but Alice took up the inquiry.
“What do you want?” she asked, imperiously.
The man, after looking keenly about, quietly replied: “I’m wonderin’ how you women come to be here alone, but first of all I want to know who made them tracks outside the door?”
Alice ignored the latter part of his question and set about satisfying his wonder. “We came up here with a geological survey, but my horse fell on my foot and I couldn’t ride, so the men had to leave me behind—”
“Alone?” sharply interrogated the man.
“No; one man stayed.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. We called him Smith.”
“Was he the man that rode away this morning?”