The girl smiled and returned his greeting brightly.
"If you had waited a few days longer for your ride down here," said Oliver, "I'd have had a better trail for you."
"Oh, I don't know that I want it any better," she laughed. "I like things pretty much as they are, when Old Mother Nature has built them. I ride down this way frequently."
She was no fragile reed, this girl. She was rather more substantially built than most members of her sex. Her figure was straight and tall and rounded, and her strong, graceful neck upreared itself proudly between sturdy shoulders. Grace and strength, rather than purely feminine beauty, predominated in the impression she created in Oliver. She wore a man's Stetson hat over her lavish crown of coal-black hair, a man's flannel shirt, a whipcord divided skirt, and dark-russet riding boots. The saddle that she rode in had not been built for a woman to handle, and, with its long, pointed tapaderos, must have weighed close to fifty pounds. The steady, friendly, confident gaze of her large black eyes was thrilling. A man instinctively felt that, if he could win this woman, he would have acquired a wife among a thousand, a loyal friend and comrade, and a partner who could and would shoulder more than a woman's share of their load.
Still, Oliver knew nothing at all about her. What he had heard of her was not exactly of the best. Yet he felt that she was gloriously all right, and did not try to argue otherwise.
"Well, I suppose I must introduce myself first," she was saying in her full, ringing tones. "I'm Jessamy Selden. My name is not Selden, though, but Lomax. When my mother married Adam Selden I took her new name. I heard somebody had moved onto the Old Ivison Place, and I deliberately rode down to get acquainted."
"You waited a month, I notice," Oliver laughingly reproached. "My name is Oliver Drew. If you'll get off your horse I'll tell you what a wonderful man I am."
She swung to the ground and held out a strong, brown, ungloved hand.
"I'll walk to your cabin with you," she said, "if you'll invite me. I'd like to see how you've been improving your time since your arrival."
Scarce able to find words with which to meet such delightful frankness, Oliver walked beside her, the white mare following and nosing at his pockets to prove that she was a privileged character.