"Nature!" He laughed at the look of incredulity with which Sarah met this assertion. In truth she had good reason to doubt his word; the smooth broad road encircling the hill, a full quarter of a mile long, edged on either side by a dense growth of cedars, seemed unmistakably to show the hand of man in its creation.
"It's the solemn truth I'm telling you," Knight insisted, "—I swear it by the mane of my milk-white steed!"
Sarah gave one glance at the dark yellow buckskin pony he rode, and then clucked impatiently to Comanche. She objected to having her faith in people imposed upon.
Knight was still laughing when Blue Bonnet came up and challenged him to a race. "My reputation for truth-telling is forever lost in Señorita Blake's estimation," he told her.
"What do you think of Sarah, anyway?" It would be curious to know just how a Western boy regarded Old Reliable.
"She's very nice," he said, with an utter absence of enthusiasm, "—but not exciting."
Blue Bonnet smiled. "And Kitty?" she continued. Perhaps it wasn't polite in a hostess to discuss her guests, but she just had to ask that.
"She's very pretty and vivacious," he replied with an increase of warmth. "She lacks only one thing to make her irresistible."
"And that?"
"Having been brought up in Texas!"