At the ranch she threw off the big saddle and corralled the mare. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. She hurried to the low adobe house and entered the kitchen.
“Mrs. Ehrhart,” she said, “is there anything for me to do toward getting supper?”
The housekeeper turned from her glossy range and gazed at her in consternation.
“Child, are you sick?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” returned Manzanita “I’m quite well, thank you. I just thought if there was nothing I could do here right now, I’d get at that alfalfa.”
“Get at the alfalfa! What alfalfa?”
“Why, our alfalfa. It needs irrigating badly. I heard Pa Squawtooth say so.”
At which she left the kitchen and the speechless housekeeper.
A little later Squawtooth Canby rode in on his big black and found his rubber hip boots walking around and carrying a shovel. So he expressed it, anyway. But in reality the boots had a motive power not their own, for Manzanita, with her skirt tucked into the tops of them, was responsible for their sluggish progress.
Canby stopped his horse and gazed at the apparition.