“I was thinking about something else.” Pearsall seemed to overlook the rebuke. “I ain’t generally so awkward. Maybe I’d better go down and mend fence.”
“Not till we’ve put our cattle through that gap!” cried Marchbanks.
“Oh—all right, all right,” agreed the manager.
Meanwhile, Hilda was pushing Sunday toward the house at his top speed—which wasn’t very much—Sunday had been faster when he was three years younger. As she went, there thrilled through her exultantly the thought of Creeping Mose in the home corral. His breaking had been interrupted for the gathering of the Flying M cattle. She shut her lips tight together, and gave Sunday the spur. She remembered Buster’s first proud introduction of the blue roan to her attention:
“Run! He can run like a scared wolf.”
Having crossed the trail and got no sight of a solitary rider whom she could identify as Pearse, Hilda was desperate. She must not refuse to ride to Tres Piños to save the Marchbanks cattle; but Sunday would be all the rest of the day making such a trip. Pearse would pass by while she was gone. Creeping Mose was the only thing on the place that could get her there and back in time to have a chance of meeting Pearse. Again she spurred Sunday, and he went past the porch, where Miss Valeria dozed over a novel, with such a burst of speed that the lady waked up, looked after her niece, somewhat aggrieved, and called a remonstrance, settling down to a murmured: “Getting too big a girl for these hoyden tricks. I ought to speak to Mr. Pearsall. The man encourages her.”
Hilda took a short-cut through the kitchen garden, where Sam Kee, cutting delectable heads of lettuce from their stalks, rose in wrath as the pony’s hoofs plunged into the soft, brown, irrigated soil.
“You spoil ’um!” he squealed. “Unc’ Hank—he spoil ’um you.”
For only answer the girl glanced back over her shoulder to where, in his faded denim, he hopped about like an infuriated and oversized bluejay, his squawks inevitably suggesting the comparison, and called: “Come on—come on, Sam. Help me.”
“No help!” the Chinaman ejaculated, toddling after her. When he reached the corral and found her with the saddle off the sweating Sunday, her rope swinging, saw it settle over Creeping Mose and bring him up short, Sam stopped in the tall, door-like gateway and burst out in a splutter of dismay: