No one but Dick Dayton,—for it was the Springtown "Mascot" himself who was trying to make friends with the ranch boy,—could have "hit off" the situation so easily. The "brigand's" face had already relaxed somewhat, though his tongue was not to be so lightly loosed.
"The fact is," Dayton went on, following up his advantage; "The fact is, there was a hold-up here in the pass last week, and my wife and I were just saying what a jolly good place it was for that kind of thing, when you flung yourself at the horses' heads. I don't know what you would have done under the circumstances, but I know you'd have been either a fool or a prophet if you hadn't let fly for all you were worth!"
The boy looked up at the friendly, humorous face, and pleasant relentings stole upon him.
"Well, then," he said, with a sudden, flashing smile, which illuminated his harsh countenance, very much as the gold of the aspens lit up the wall of frowning rock over there. "That's all right, and I'm glad I did it."
"All right!" cried Dayton, with a sudden rising emotion in his voice,—"I should think it was all right! It isn't every day that a man and his wife get their lives saved in that offhand way! Why! I'm all balled up every time I think of it!"
"Oh, well; I don't know!" said Waldo, relapsing into embarrassment again; "I guess it was the horses I thought of as much as anything!"
Dayton was still too sincerely moved to laugh outright at this unexpected turn, as he would have done in spite of himself under ordinary circumstances, but he found it a relief to slip back into his tone of easy banter.
"If that's the case," he said; "would you mind coming back and being introduced to the horses? They are just behind us, and I think they ought to have a chance to make their acknowledgments."
The boy, very much aware that he had said the wrong thing, yet attracted, in spite of himself and his own blunders, to the good-natured giant, yielded, awkwardly enough, and retraced his steps. They were soon face to face with the horses, making their way at a slow walk down the road, driven by the woman whose face Waldo had had a confused glimpse of in the heat of that fateful encounter.
"This is my wife, Mrs. Dayton," said the big man; "and you are?"