Rhoda that faint stir of hope and longing that she had experienced the day before. She opened her eyes and finally, as the call continued, she crept languidly from her bed and peered from behind the window-shade. Cartwell, in his khaki suit, his handsome head bared to the hot sun, leaned against a peach-tree while he watched Rhoda's window. 

 "I wonder what he wakened me for?" she thought half resentfully.  "I can't go to sleep again, so I may as well dress and have breakfast." 

 Hardly had she seated herself at her solitary meal when Cartwell appeared. 

 "Dear me!" he exclaimed.  "The birds and Mr. DeWitt have been up this long time." 

 "What is John doing?" asked Rhoda carelessly. 

 "He's gone up on the first mesa for the wildcats I spoke of last night. I thought perhaps you might care to take a drive before it got too hot. You didn't sleep well last night, did you?" 

 Rhoda answered whimsically. 

 "It's the silence. It thunders at me so! I will get used to it soon. Perhaps I ought to drive. I suppose I ought to try everything." 

 Not at all discouraged, apparently, by this lack of enthusiasm, Cartwell said: 

 "I won't let you overdo. I'll have the top-buggy for you and we'll go slowly and carefully." 

 "No," said Rhoda, suddenly recalling that, after all, Cartwell was an Indian, "I don't think I will go. Katherine will have all sorts of objections." 

 The Indian smiled sardonically. 

 "I already have Mrs. Jack's permission. Billy Porter will be in, in a moment. If you would rather have a white man than an Indian, as escort, I'm quite willing to retreat." 

 Rhoda flushed delicately. 

 "Your frankness is almost—almost impertinent, Mr. Cartwell." 

 "I don't mean it that way at all!" protested the Indian. "It's just that I saw so plainly what was going on in your mind and it piqued me. If it will be one bit pleasanter for you with Billy, I'll go right out and hunt him up for you now." 

 The young man's naïveté completely disarmed Rhoda. 

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