She turned. It was the young inventor from the wheat ranch, on horseback
and with a clean face. He had just ridden out of the grain on the same
side of the chasm as herself.

"But you seem to have got over," she said bluntly.

"Yes, but it was further up the field. I reckoned that the split might
be deeper but not so broad in the rock outcrop over there than in the
adobe here. I found it so and jumped it."

He looked as if he might--alert, intelligent, and self-contained. He
lingered a moment, and then continued:--

"I'm afraid you must have been badly shaken and a little frightened up
there before the chimneys came down?"

"No," she was glad to say briefly, and she believed truthfully, "I wasn't
frightened. I didn't even know it was an earthquake."

"Ah!" he reflected, "that was because you were a stranger. It's
odd--they're all like that. I suppose it's because nobody really expects
or believes in the unlooked-for thing, and yet that's the thing that
always happens. And then, of course, that other affair, which really is
serious, startled you the more."

She felt herself ridiculously and angrily blushing. "I don't know what
you mean," she said icily. "What other affair?"

"Why, the well."