avocation, for which her mother expressed little sympathy, no enthusiasm
whatever, and a grudgingly given consent. Mary V was making a collection
of Desert Glimpses for educational purposes at her boarding school. She
had long been urged to do so by her schoolmates and teachers, she told
her mother, and now she was going to do it. It should be the very best,
most complete collection any one could possibly make within riding
distance of the Rolling R. Incidentally she meant to collect jackrabbit
ears and rattlesnake rattles, for the purpose of thrilling the girls, but
she did not tell her mother that. Neither did she tell her mother just
why her quest always lay to the southward when there was plenty of desert
to be glimpsed toward the north and to the east and the west. She did not
even tell herself why she did that.

So Mary V, knowing well the terrific heat she would have to face in the
middle of the day, ordered her horse saddled when the boys saddled their
own--which was about sunrise. She did not keep it standing more than half
an hour or so before she came out and mounted him. She was well equipped
for her enterprise. She carried a camera, three extra rolls of film, a
telescoped tripod which she tied under her right stirrup leather, a pair
of high-power Busch glasses (to glimpse with, probably), two duck-covered
canteens filled and dripping, a generous lunch of sandwiches and cake and
sour pickles, a box-magazine .22 rifle, a knife, a tube of cold cream
wrapped in a bit of cheesecloth, and a very compact yet very complete
vanity case. Jostling the vanity case in her saddle pocket were two boxes
of soft-nose, .22-long cartridges for the rifle. Furthermore, for special
personal protection she had an extremely businesslike six-shooter which
she carried in a shoulder holster under her riding shirt; a concession to
her father, who had made her promise never to ride away from the ranch
without it.