"Angus! Wait a minute!" she cried. She was apparently a couple of years younger than the boy, slim, brown of hair, eye, and face, delicate of feature. She held out a paper-wrapped parcel. "Here's some doughnuts for your lunch," she said.
But the boy frowned down at her. "I've got my lunch," he said tapping the cotton bag. In it there was bread and cold meat, which he esteemed manly fare.
"But you like doughnuts," said the girl, "and I thought—I thought—"
Her eyes filled with moisture which was not that of the mists, and the boy either because of that or affected by the silent argument of the doughnuts, relented.
"Oh, well, give 'em here," he said, and dismounting untied the bag, thrust in the doughnuts, made all fast again and remounted. "Tell father I'll be back in time to feed the stock to-night."
"Yes, Angus. I hope you'll get a deer."
"Sure, I'll get one," the boy replied confidently. A thought seemed to strike him. "Oh, thanks for the doughnuts."
The girl beamed at this belated recognition. She felt fully repaid for both the cooking and the early rising. For when a brother is going hunting naturally his thoughts are far above such things as doughnuts and younger sisters. Recognizing the propriety of this she turned back to the house.
The boy rode fast. He passed the boundaries of the ranch, followed a road for a mile and then, turning into a beaten cattle trail, headed eastward toward the flanks of a mountain range showing beneath the skirts of the rising mist.
The trail wound sinuously, rising from benchland to benchland, but the boy stuck to it, for he knew that cattle invariably choose the easiest way. Also he knew the country so near home like a book, or rather better than he knew any written books. To him the land, lying as yet much as it came from the hands of the Creator, carried more messages and held more interesting things than any printed pages. Grouse scuttled aside or rose with a roar of wings, and the boy eyed them regretfully. Once he caught sight of a coyote, an arrogant, bushy-tailed youngster which, apparently knowing that he was in a hurry, stood in full view watching him. Once he stopped short at a momentary glimpse of something in thick bush. But as he did not see it again, he rode on.