ditch. Somebody's apt to be hurt anytime. I'm Charley Cartwell, Jack Newman's engineer." "Oh!" said Rhoda understandingly. "I'm so dizzy I can't see you very well. This is very good of you. Perhaps now you'd go on and get the buckboard. Tell them it's for Rhoda, Rhoda Tuttle. I just went out for a walk and then—" Her voice trailed into nothingness and she could only steady her swaying body with both hands against the rock. "Huh!" grunted young Cartwell. "I go on to the house and leave you here in the boiling sun!" "Would you mind hurrying?" asked Rhoda. "Not at all," returned Cartwell. He plucked the stocking and slipper from the yucca and dropped them into his pocket. Then he stooped and lifted Rhoda across his broad chest. This roused her. "Why, you can't do this!" she cried, struggling to free herself. Cartwell merely tightened his hold and swung out at a pace that was half run, half walk. "Close your eyes so the sun won't hurt them," he said peremptorily. Dizzily and confusedly, Rhoda dropped her head back on the broad shoulder and closed her eyes, with a feeling of security that later on was to appall her. Long after she was to recall the confidence of this moment with unbelief and horror. Nor did she dream how many weary days and hours she one day was to pass with this same brazen sky over her, this same broad shoulder under her head. Cartwell looked down at the delicate face lying against his breast, at the soft yellow hair massed against his sleeve. Into his black eyes came a look that was passionately tender, and the strong brown hand that supported Rhoda's shoulders trembled. In an incredibly short time he was entering the peach orchard that surrounded the ranch-house. A young man in white flannels jumped from a hammock in which he had been dozing. "For heaven's sake!" he exclaimed. "What does this mean?" Rhoda was too ill to reply. Cartwell did not slack his giant stride toward the house. "It means," he answered grimly, "that you folks must be crazy to
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