I admit my crowd hit the booze pretty strong. But I never drank. Honest, Dad.”

“Cherry, I don’t know whether to believe you or not. But I’ve seen you smoke.”

“Oh, well, that’s different. Smoking isn’t very clean, but it’s a fashionable vice, and restful at least.”

“How about all your men?” Winters queried, evidently emboldened for the minute. “Lord! When I think of the men you’ve made idiots! Take that last one…the young Valentino who brags of being engaged to you.”

Cherry laughed merrily. “Dad, do you think that’s nice? Chauncey Sarland is just too sweet for words…also he dances divinely.”

“Sarland is a slick little article. Like his social ladder-climbing mama. But I’ll see that he doesn’t dance or climb into your inheritance.”

“To think you separated me from him!” Cherry cried, pretending tragic pathos.

A slim young Indian girl entered. She was dark and pretty. “Meester, you room ees ready.”

“Thank you,” said Winters, picking up his coat and hat. “Cherry, you’ve got me right. I did separate you from Sarland. Also from a lot of other fortune-hunters. That’s why you’re out in this desert for a spell. Except for Linn and Heftral, who you can’t flirt with, there’s not a man within a hundred miles.”

Cherry eyed her retreating parent, and replied demurely: “Yes, kind, sweet, thoughtful Father.”

Winters went out with the Indian maid, and at the same moment a young man entered the other door, carrying a valise in each hand. He had a ruddy face, and was carelessly dressed in striped woolen shirt, overalls, and top boots. He wore a big dusty sombrero. When he spotted Cherry his eyes popped wide open and he dropped one valise, then the other.

“Was you addressin’ me, miss?” he asked ecstatically.

“Not then. I was speaking to my father. He just left the room…You…sort of took me by surprise.”

“Shore, you tuk my wind.”

“Do you live here?” Cherry asked with interest, thinking: This trading post might not turn out so badly after all.

“Shore do,” replied the young man, grinning.

“Are you Missus Linn’s son?”

“Naw. Jest a plain no-good cowboy.”

“My very first cowboy,” murmured Cherry.

“Aw, miss, I’m shore honored. I’ll be yore…yore first anythin’. Ain’t you the Winters girl we’re expectin’?”

“Yes, I’m Cherry Winters.”

“An’ I’m Mojave. The boys call me that after the Mojave Desert which ain’t got no beginnin’ or end.”

As Cherry broke into laughter another young man entered, also carrying a grip in each hand. He was overdressed, like a motion-picture cowboy, and he had a swarthy, dark face. He gave Cherry a warm smile.

“Cowboy, reckon you can put them bags down an’ get back for more,” blandly said Mojave.

“Buenos días, señorita,” greeted this one, dropping the bags and sweeping the floor with his sombrero.

Cherry was quick to see that Mojave suddenly remembered to remove his own wide headgear.

“Same to you,” replied Cherry, smiling as teasingly as possible.

“Miss Winters, this here’s Lorenzo,” Mojave said apologetically. “He’s a Mexican. He seen a Western movie once an’ ain’t never got over it. He’s been dressed up all day waitin’ for you.”

“I’m tremendously flattered,” returned Cherry.

“Mees, thees are your bags I carry.