"And do you mean to tell me that when you said you might not go back to Woodford, and that there was no college in store for Alec Trent you only meant—"
"Till I had the strength to go through with it, yes. I've had enough breakdowns. Why, what—"
"I wish you were a girl so that I could shake you!" Blue Bonnet's look was a queer mixture of relief and indignation. "Why couldn't you say so in the first place? When you kept making all those mysterious hints, I was wasting good, honest pity on you because I thought you were preparing for an early grave!"
Alec's peal of laughter showed how far from pitiable his state was. "Oh, Blue Bonnet, I wish I could tell that to Knight!"
"But didn't you hint?" she demanded.
"Of course I did. I was fishing for an invitation to make a good long visit to the Blue Bonnet ranch. Hardly likely, was it, that I was going to demand it boldly as a right?"
"Well, it would have saved me a heap of worry if you had. Why, Alec!" Blue Bonnet sank down on the bank to think it over. "What are you going to do on the ranch all winter?"
He threw himself on the grass beside her.
"I'm going to live, as far as possible, like Pinto Pete and Shady. I'm going to ride the range, go on the round-up this fall and next spring,—spend about fifteen hours a day in the open. And if I'm not as husky as a Texas cowboy by next summer, it won't be my fault. You know it's been my one wish, Blue Bonnet, and this, I'm convinced is the way to get it."
"And college?"