The Bismarck Tribune

Superstition Mountain

Cast of Characters
Carolyn Colt—heroine; prospector's daughter.
Stuart Blake—tourist; Carolee's lover.
Henry Colter—prospector.
Paul and Silas Colter—prospector's sons.
Nina Blake—Stuart's sister.

Yesterday: The Colters had Stuart in the mountains, rescue him from the Superstition Mountain Louise.

Chapter IX

Carolee hung out a sheet at 9 o'clock the next morning.

She was hard put to find an excuse for it. It simply wouldn't do to have her family know she was signaling Stuart Blake. She felt guilty, like a mischievous child, when she stole out of the camp shack and hurriedly attached the sheet to the clothesline.

And soon after she stole out again and took it down. At 10 o'clock she was at the trysting place on Chieftain.

Stuart came soon after she arrived.

"I wasn't sure you'd be able to make it," she said. "But I wanted to know how you were. I would have ridden on to the Lodge."

"I'm perfect. Almost. Thanks again for helping me. I just needed water. Another day without it and I'd have been tied up plenty, I imagine."

"You didn't look very happy."

"But I feel happy today. Especially now."

"Why? What's happened?" She thought she knew what he meant, but she wanted to hear him say it.

"I'm with you." He leaned on his saddle horn and looked appealingly at her. "Carolee, you told me once I'd never understand your kind of people, as you call them. Tell me, why do you think that? Aren't we all Americans?"

"Yes. But—you're northern, and city reared. Papa and the boys have been poor farmers all their lives. They mean well. They are good to me. But they are—narrow, I guess; and hard."

"But yourself, Carolee. You aren't that way. You're alert and smart. You don't have to stick with your family and all, do you? I mean, not always?"

She wasn't sure she understood him.

"I guess not. But I'm one of them, anyway. I think you are nice, though; I don't ever hold a grudge, and I'll admit again that we were very rude in the saddle store that day."

"Oh, forget that. That's history and more funny than anything. Look, milady, I've brought you a gift. It's little enough for the favor you did me yesterday."

He gave her a small parcel.

She dimpled at him, and the vision she made sent thrills through him.

Carolee Colter was pretty, sweet, refreshingly so. She wore rouge often, but it was superfluous. And her curls were natural. She was slightly short, weighed, perhaps, 115. There was ever-so-delicate a nub to her nose. Stuart studied her closely as she unwrapped her gift.

"O-o-oh! Stuart!"

She lifted it from its tissue—a bracelet of silver set with the most perfect of turquoise. One large stone was shaped like an arrow head, barbs and all. Tiny round ones followed the open circle of the bracelet—beautiful blue-green gems which Carolee knew were native to the Arizona hills. The silver was heavy and richly adorned with tiny sun symbols, a swastika, a running horse, a wiggly snake, Indian signs all.

"Old Hosteen made it for me," said Stuart. "Or rather for you. He comes to the Lodge sometimes. He's not Apache, like the squaws you saw. He's Navajo."

She slipped it on her lovely arm. She held it out, up.

"The stones match the sky," she almost whispered, so keen was her admiration. "It's beautiful, Stuart. Thank you, very, very much."

"I'm happy if you like it, Carolee."

"Then you're happy, very happy."

"I hoped it would please you. I have never seen you wear bracelet before."

She looked wistfully at him and smiled more sweetly than he had ever before seen her, he thought.

"I don't have one. Boys in school gave me candy, and sometimes flowers. Nobody ever gave me jewelry before. Not even my parents." She was speaking very gently. It was obvious that he had touched her; a hint of tears even

"I guess not. But I'm one of them, anyway. I think you are nice, though; I don't ever hold a grudge, and I'll admit again that we were very rude in the saddle store that day."

"It's a fur piece across there, as the cowboys say, isn't it? I wonder how the Tribune Tower would look sitting out there. Or the Merchandise Mart?"

"The what?" She looked up at him.

"Ha ha! That's Chicago, Carolee. Two of our big skyscrapers. They'd look tiny besides any little mountain out here, though."

"What is Chicago like, Stuart?"

"Like—like a nightmare sometimes. Noisy and crowded and ugly. Not always, though. I've had swell times there. You'd love it for a while. But any city is a little synthetic, I think."

"You mean you think it isn't real? The people? The fun? Everything?"

They talked for an hour about Chicago. She asked many questions, Dallas was the biggest city she had ever seen, and that only to pass through. She had gone to school at a junior college in Jacksonville, Texas. Acquaintance with a man from the bustling, energetic, urban north was stimulating to her. She liked Stuart Blake.

She told herself she could love him even, if things ever went that way. He seemed—well, clean. He had never tried to kiss her. (Sometimes, she confessed to herself, she even wished he had!)

And his gift, this beautiful bracelet of Indian silver, was something she'd never forget. She'd rather have had it than a thing of diamonds. It was a part of Arizona, actually and sentimentally.

When it was time to go she thanked him again, and agreed to meet him often on signal. She discouraged any thought of his calling at her shack home, even to take her riding.

"It has been lovely to see you and talk," she told him. "I have even forgotten to worry."

She regretted the admission instantly. She bit her lip and frowned. He was looking at her, kindly but intently.

"Something's wrong," he said. "I have butted in on your family affairs too much already, but—"

"It's probably nothing alarming," she forced a smile. "I—I think your experience in the mountain upset me a little, is all. I'm so happy you didn't suffer more. I may not signal tomorrow, but I will let you know if ever I need you, Stuart."

To both of them it seemed very natural thing for her to say.

(To Be Continued)