"Oh, those tiny little stick-up things, like loosened threads?"
"Yes. You'll see it's quite easy, after the first."
Oh, was it indeed? Nick suppressed a groan, not at his task, but at his own oxlike awkwardness (so he anathematized it) that made a torture of a delicious privilege. Evidently it was a much harder thing to lasso one of these little pearl atrocities with its alleged "loop" than to rope a vicious steer. And there were those tangling threads of gold. If he should hurt her!
The ex-cowboy almost prayed, as, with the caution of a man treading upon knife-blades on the edge of a precipice, he unwound the two little curls from the top button of the collar. And perhaps his unconscious appeal for mercy had its effect, for the tendrils yielded graciously to coaxing. He would have given a year of his life to kiss one of those curls; a comparatively worthless year it would be, since, in all probability, it would be empty of Angela May! Yet no—now that he had touched her like this, now that he had come so near to her, he felt with all his soul that he could never let her go. He would have to keep her somehow.
"She may think there's a dead line between us," he told himself; "but before we leave the Yosemite Valley together I'm going to do my best to cross that line, if I get shot for my cheek. It's better to dare the dash and die, than not to dare, and lose her."
Never, perhaps, was so desperate a resolve cemented while fastening a woman's blouse; but there was a hint of triumph in Nick's voice as he announced, "I've done it!" His signal success in two operations of extreme difficulty seemed to him like two separate good omens.
Angela lightly thanked her knight for his services and bade him wait on the veranda while she put on her jacket and hat. A minute later she came out again, ready for breakfast; and now, having a mind released from buttons, she saw that Nick was good to look upon in his khaki riding-clothes.
"Am I all right?" she inquired modestly.
"Better than all right," he allowed himself to answer.
"I do think this hat of Hawaiian straw is a success. And you—well, I'm rather proud of my trail guide. Used you to dress like that in your cowboy days?"