"You didn't need to; but go ahead."
"It's all about the ranch," said Bobby, looking over the pages and smiling to herself. "They've had an awful row with the new broncho-buster, and Hal had to punch his head for being cruel to the horses. I knew that fellow wasn't any good." She read on for a while to herself. "Says the shooting promises to be great this year. My! but I hate to miss it!"
"Whatever do you find to shoot?"
"A little of everything from teal duck to Canada goose."
"Really!" exclaimed Percival, with interest. "And do you shoot?"
"Oh, yes, some. I'm not as good as the boys. You see, I have to use Pa Joe's old No. 10 choke-bore shot-gun, when I really ought to have a 16-bore fowling-piece."
Here was a new and wholly unsuspected bond of sympathy between them. Percival would have plunged at once into a dissertation on a subject upon which he considered himself an authority had not the fluttering sheets of the letter stirred vague misgivings in his bosom.
"You aren't playing fair!" he cried. "You are telling me what is in your letter without reading it to me."
"So I am!" She looked over page after page. "Here, this will do. It says: 'I wish you could have been along last night when I hit the trail for the Lower Ranch. You know what that old road looks like in the moonlight, all deep black in the gorges, and white on the cliffs, and not a dog-gone sound but the hoof-beats of your horse and the clank of the bridle-chains. Why, when you come out in the open and the wind gets to ripping 'cross the grass-fields, and the moon gets busy with every little old blade, and there's miles of beauty stretched out far as your eye can reach, I'd back it against any sight in the world. Only last night I wasn't thinking much about the scenery. I was thinking—'" Bobby stopped short, declaring that she had a cinder in her eye.
"Can't be a cinder, out here in the bay," protested Percival.