"We can go through the pasture and cut off a couple of miles," said Honey when they were mounted. "I hope you don't think I'm crazy, wanting a ride at this time of day, after all the excitement we've had. But every Sunday is taken up with horse-racing till late in the afternoon, and during the week no one has time to go. And," she added with a sidelong look at him, "there's something about the Sinks that makes me love to go there. Uncle Dave won't let me go alone."
Bud dismounted to pull down the two top bars of the pasture gate so that their horses could step over. A little way down the grassy slope Smoky and Sunfish fed together, the Little Lost horses grouped nearer the creek.
"I love that little horse of yours--why, he's gone lame again!" exclaimed Honey. "Isn't that a shame! You oughtn't to run him if it does that to him."
"He likes it," said Bud carelessly as he remounted. "And so do I, when I can clean up the way I did today. I'm over three hundred dollars richer right now than I was this morning."
"And next Sunday, maybe you'll be broke," Honey added significantly. "You never know how you are coming out. I think Jeff let you win to-day on purpose, so you'd bet it all again and lose. He's like that. He don't care how much he loses one day, because he gets it back some other time. I don't like it. Some of the boys never do get ahead, and you'll be in the same fix if you don't look out."
"You didn't bring me along to lecture me, I know," said Bud with a good-natured smile. "What about the Sinks ? Is it a dangerous place as--Mrs. Morris says?"
"Oh, Marian? She never does want me to come. She thinks I ought to stay in the house always, the way she does. The Sinks is--is--queer. There are caves, and then again deep holes straight down, and tracks of wildcats and lions. And in some places you can hear gurgles and rumbles. I love to be there just at sundown, because the shadows are spooky and it makes you feel--oh, you know--kind of creepy up your back.
You don't know what might happen. I--do you believe in ghosts and haunted places, Bud?"
"I'd need a lot of scaring before I did. Are the Sinks haunted?"
"No-o--but there are funny noises and people have got lost there. Anyway they never showed up afterwards. The Indians claim it's haunted." She smiled that baring smile of hers.
"Do you want to turn around and go back?"
"Sure. After we've had our ride, and seen the sights." And he added with some satisfaction, "The moon 's full to-night, and no clouds."
"And I brought sandwiches," Honey threw in as especial blessing. "Uncle Dave will be mad, I expect. But I've never seen the Sinks at night, with moonlight."
She was quiet while the horses waded Sunk Creek and picked their way carefully over a particularly rocky stretch beyond.
"But what I'd rather do," she said, speaking from her thoughts which had evidently carried forward in the silence, "is explore Catrock Canyon."
"Well, why not, if we have time?" Bud rode up alongside her. "Is it far?"
Honey looked at him searchingly. "You must be stranger to these parts," she said disbelievingly. "Do you think you can make me swallow that?"
Bud looked at her inquiringly, which forced her to go on.
"You must know about Catrock Canyon, Bud Birnie. Don't try to make me believe you don't."
"I don't. I never heard of it before that I remember. What is it makes you want to explore it?"
Honey studied him. "You're the queerest specimen I ever did see," she exclaimed pettishly. "Why, it's not going to hurt you to admit you know Catrock Canyon is--unexplorable."
"Oh. So you want to explore it because it's unexplorable.
Well, why is it unexplorable?"
Honey looked around her at the dry sageland they were crossing. "Oh, you make me TIRED!" she said bluntly, with something of the range roughness in her voice. "Because it is, that's all."
"Then I'd like to explore it myself," Bud declared.
"For one thing," Honey dilated, "there's no way to get in there.
Up on the ridge this side, where the rock is that throws a shadow like a cat's head on the opposite wall, you can look down a ways. But the two sides come so close together at the top that you can't see the bottom of the canyon at all. I've been on the ridge where I could see the cat's head."
Bud glanced speculatively up at the sun, and Honey, catching his meaning, shook her head and smiled.
"If we get into the Sinks and back to-day, they will do enough talking about it; or Uncle Dave will, and Marian. I--I thought perhaps you'd be able to tell me about--Catrock Canyon."
"I'm able to say I don't know a thing about it. If no one can get into it, I should think that's about all, isn't it?"
"Yes--you'd think so," Honey agreed enigmatically, and began to talk of the racing that day, and of the dance, and of other dances and other races yet to come. Bud discussed these subjects for a while and then asked boldly, "When's Lew coming back?"
"Lew?" Honey shot a swift glance at him. "Why?" She looked ahead at the forbidding, craggy hills toward which she had glanced when she spoke of Catrock. "Why, I don't know. How should I?"
Bud saw that he had spoken unwisely. "I was thinking he'd maybe hate to miss another running match like to-day," he explained guilelessly. "Everybody and his dog seemed to be there to-day, and everybody had money up. All," he modified, "except the Muleshoe boys. I didn't see any of them."
"You won't," Honey told him with some emphasis. "Uncle Dave and the Muleshoe are on the outs. They never come around except for mail and things from the store. And most always they send Hen. Uncle Dave and Dirk Tracy had an awful row last winter. It was next thing to a killing. So of course the outfits ain't on friendly terms."
