"Th—thank you!" the girl murmured, and swayed a little, catching the horn with both hands. "I—I think I'll get down, for a minute."
"Sure!" Turkey agreed, but as he saw how she slid from the saddle he leaped down and caught her.
"I'll be all right in a minute. I must have been frightened. It's so silly of me."
She sat down on the grass, and Turkey tied the bay to a sapling. This done he regarded the girl furtively, deciding that though not exactly pretty, she was mighty easy to look at. Blue eyes, fair hair, nice skin, tall and well-built. He hoped she wouldn't faint. That would be—well, it would be embarrassing. He wouldn't know what the—that is he would be helpless.
"I'm not going to faint," she said as if in answer to his thought. "I'm just shaken up."
Turkey nodded. A run down hill jolts even a hardened puncher at times. Girls were complicated machines—soft, too. Shaking up wasn't good for 'em. But in a moment the color began to come back to her cheeks.
"There," she said, "I feel better. I want to thank you really, now."
"That's all right," said Turkey. "I couldn't stop him on the grade; he'd have gone over, likely. What started him?"
"A piece of newspaper blew off the sides of the road under his feet. I couldn't hold him at all."
Turkey feebly expressed his opinion of people who dropped paper beside a road, the feebleness being due to the sex of his unknown companion.