CHAPTER XV.
ON CEDAR RIDGE.
Kitty's friends were very glad to welcome her at their camp in Granite Basin.

The incident which had so rudely broken the seclusion of their honeymoon had been too nearly a tragedy to be easily forgotten.

The charm of the place was, in some degree, for them, lost, and Kitty's coming helped to dispel the cloud that had a little overshadowed those last days of their outing.
It was not at all difficult for them to persuade Kitty to remain longer than the one night that she had planned, and to accompany them to Prescott.

Prom Prescott, Stanford must go to the mines, to take up his work, and to arrange for Helen's coming later, and Helen would go home with Kitty for the visit she had promised.

The cowboys, who were returning to the Cross-Triangle Ranch, would take Kitty's horse to her home, and would carry a message explaining the young woman's absence, and asking that someone be sent to Prescott with the clothing she would need in town, and that the Reid automobile might be in Prescott in readiness to take the two young women back to the ranch on the appointed day.
Kitty could not bring herself to tell even Helen about her engagement to Lawrence Knight, or Patches, as she would continue to call him until the time came for the cowboy himself to make his true name and character known.