“No. It was when you took that tumble into the tree; was hanging on by your eyelashes, yet could joke about it,” declared Helen, warmly.
She might have added, too, that now he had been washed and his hair combed, he was an attractive-looking young man. She did not believe Dudley Stone was of age. His brown hair curled tightly all over his head, and he sported a tiny golden mustache. He had good color and was somewhat bronzed.
Dud’s blue eyes were frank, his lips were red and nicely curved; but his square chin took away from the lower part of his face any suggestion of effeminacy. His ears were generous, as was his nose. He had the clean-cut, intelligent look of the better class of educated Atlantic seaboard youth.
There is a difference between them and the young Westerner. The latter are apt to be hung loosely, and usually show the effect of range-riding—at least, back here in Montana. Whereas Dud Stone was compactly built.
They chatted quite frankly while the patient ate his supper. Dud found that, although Helen used many Western idioms, and spoke with an abruptness that showed her bringing up among plain-spoken ranch people, she could, if she so desired, use “school English” with good taste, and gave other evidences in her conversation of being quite conversant with the world of which he was himself a part when he was at home.
“Oh, you would get along all right in New York,” he said, laughing, when she suggested a doubt as to the impression she might make upon her relatives in the big town. “You’d not be half the ‘tenderfoot’ there that I am here.”
“No? Then I reckon I can risk shocking them,” laughed Helen, her gray eyes dancing.
This talk she had with Dud Stone on the evening of his arrival confirmed the young mistress of Sunset Ranch in her intention of going to the great city.