NANCY FLEET'S WINDFALL
Jessamy Selden stood before the cheap soft-wood dresser in her bedroom, in a wing of the old log house, and completed the braiding of the two long, thick strands of cold-black hair. Then in the cozy little sitting room, which adjoined the bedroom and was hers alone, she slipped on her morocco-top riding boots and buckled spur straps over her insteps.
The sun had not yet climbed the wooded ridges beyond Poison Oak Ranch. The night before the girl had prepared a cold breakfast for herself; and with this wrapped in paper she left the sitting room by its outside door and ran to the corral. The family was at breakfast in the vast room. Hurlock's and Winthrop's families were likewise engaged in their respective houses. So no one was about to disturb or even see Jessamy as she hastily threw the saddle on White Ann, leaped into it, and rode away.
When she had left the clearing, and the noise of rapid hoofbeats would not be heard, she lifted the mare into a gallop. At this reckless speed they swung into the trail and plunged hazardously down the mountainside along the serpentine trail. They forded the river, took the trail on the other side, and raced madly up it until compassion for her labouring mount forced the rider to rein in. Now she ate her breakfast of cold baked apple and cold fried mush in the saddle as the mare clambered upward.
At sunrise they topped the ridge and took up the lope again toward the headwaters of Clinker Creek. Long before she reached it Jessamy saw a bay horse and its rider at rest, with the early sunlight playing on the flashing silver of the famous saddle and bridle of Oliver Drew.
"Let's go!" she cried merrily as White Ann, convinced that some devilment was afoot, cavorted and humped her back and shied from side to side while she bore down swiftly on the waiting pair.
For answer Oliver Drew pressed his calves against Poche's ribs, and the bay leaped to White Ann's side with a snort that showed he had caught the spirit of the coming adventure, whatever it might prove to be. At a gallop they swung into the county road, Poche producing a challenging metallic rattle by rolling the wheel of his halfbreed bit with his tongue, straining at the reins, and bidding the equally defiant white to do that of which "angels could do no more."
"Good morning!" cried Oliver. "What's the rush?"
"Old Man Selden is riding to Aunt Nancy's today," she shouted back. "Good morning!"
"Oh! In that case, if that white crowbait you're riding hadn't already come three miles, we'd find out whether she can run. She's telling the world she can."