At table Alan and Helen found a variety of subjects to interest them; Mrs. Murray stared at them a moment, then shrugged her plump shoulders and made Barbee transcendently happy and miserable by turns; Longstreet ate his dried beef stew abstractedly. Barbee and Mrs. Murray, who finished first, excused themselves and went back to the gathering dusk of the porch, whence her light laughter came now and then trilling back into the dining-room.
'Who is she?' asked Helen, her eyes full upon Howard's.
'Mrs. Murray?' He shrugged. 'That is all I know of her; or that anyone I know knows of her. I don't fancy,' he added coolly, 'that you will like her.'
'I don't,' the girl announced briefly.
'Mind you,' he hurried to continue, 'I don't know a blessed thing against her. I just meant that I didn't think her your kind.'
'Thank you,' Helen replied, accepting the statement as a satisfactory compliment. He laughed. Then he looked toward the professor, whose thoughts were plainly a thousand miles away.
'I've caught an inspiration,' he said softly.
'What is it?' smiled Helen.
There'll be a moon in two or three hours. At best the accommodations here are bad; rooms stuffy and close and hot. If you are not too tired-----'
He saw that she understood what he meant, and further that she gave her glad acceptance.
'It will be fun!' she told him. He even detected a something of eagerness in her tone; he had already thought that it would be just he and she this time--they two alone riding together out through the glorious night, chaperoned only by the knowledge that somewhere in the distance behind them the wagon jolted along. He wondered if she, too, had thought of this?
When the three at table finished and went out into the cool of the porch they found only empty chairs; a half-silhouette showed where Barbee leaned against a pepper tree by the roadside. Helen settled herself comfortably, wandering if Mrs. Murray had re-entered the hotel by some side door or if she had business elsewhere. Howard made the suggestion of the return to Desert Valley. Longstreet hesitated, then objected, saying that by now the store would be closed and that the wagon was still to be loaded.
'Tod Barstow will be up at the saloon, probably looking for a game of cribbage,' said Howard. 'It will take me about three shakes to locate him. The store will be open; old Mexican Pete lives in the back. I'll have Tod hitch up at the first peep of the moon; he can load your stuff on in twenty minutes.'