I’ve been picked for a health poster. It’s my father who is ailing.”

“Excuse me, miss,” said Mrs. Linn, embarrassed. “You see your father looks so strong…”

“It isn’t his body that’s weak, Missus Linn,” Cherry interrupted. “It’s his mind.”

Here Stephen came to the rescue, as Cherry remembered he had always done in New York.

“Missus Linn, it’s not a question of ill health for anybody,” he explained. “Mister Winters was an old friend of my father’s. I met him in New York. He wanted to come out West and get Miss Cherry as far away from civilization as possible, to…”

“I’ll say he’s done it,” interrupted Cherry. “It must be a real knockout to live here if you’re crazy about miles of nothing but sand, rocks, and sky, and you’ve committed some crime or other and want to hide.”

Mrs. Linn tried to control her amazement.

“Mister Winters, your rooms are not quite ready. Please wait here a little…Pa, see that them lazy cowboys fetch in the baggage.”

“Stephen, where are the boys, anyhow?” Linn asked as his spouse bustled out.

“They were lounging in the shade when the car came up. Then they disappeared like jack rabbits in the sage. Sure they’re going to be funny. I’ll help you find them.”

“Folks, make yourselves comfortable,” invited Linn, and left the room with the archaeologist.

Mr. Winters sauntered over to Cherry and gazed disapprovingly down upon her.

“Cherry, I don’t mind you calling me crazy or poking fun at me. But please don’t extend that to my young friend, Heftral. His father was the finest man I ever knew, and Stephen is pretty much like him…Cherry, you’ll have to put your best foot forward if you want to appear well to Stephen Heftral. He’s not likely to see the sophisticated type with a microscope out here. In New York he had you buffaloed. You couldn’t like him because you didn’t understand him.”

“Darling Father,” Cherry replied, smiling tantalizingly up at him. “Your name may be Elijah, but you’re no prophet. I liked your young friend well enough to let him alone. But that was in New York where there are a million men. I don’t know about out here. Probably he’ll bore me to extinction. Can’t you see he’s as dry as the dust of this desert? He’s living two thousand years behind the times. Fancy digging in the earth for things of the past. Well, he might dig up a jeweled corncob pipe and discover there were glamour girls in the old Aztec days.”

“Cherry, you’re nothing if not incorrigible,” returned Winters in despair.

“Dad, I’m your daughter. I don’t know whether you’ve brought me up poorly or I’ve neglected you. But the fact is all our educators and scientists claim the parents of the present generation are responsible for our demerits.”

“Cherry, I’m responsible for your conduct out here, at all events,” Winters declared forcefully.

“Oh, you are! Well, my dearest Dad, I’m here all right…or else I’ve been drinking.”

“Cherry, there’ll be no more of this drinking business.”

“Dad, you’ve got me figured wrong.