She blushed. “I like a big man—about as big as you,” she said. “A man with fierce eyes that glower at a woman when she talks to him of love—she insisting that she hasn’t quite fallen in love—with him. I like a man who is jealous of the reputation of the woman he professes to love; a man who is jealous of other men; a man who isn’t so very good-looking, but who is a handsome man for all that—because he is so very manly; a man who will fight and risk his life for me.”
“Could you name such a man?” he said. There was a scornful gleam in his eyes.
“I am looking at him this minute!” she said.
Grinning, for he knew all along that she had been talking of him, he wheeled quickly and tried to catch her in his arms. But she slipped off the rock and was around on the other side of it, keeping it between them while he tried to catch her. Instinctively he realized that the chase was hopeless, but he persisted.
“I’ll never speak to you again if you catch me!” she warned, her eyes flashing.
“But you told me——”
“That I liked you,” she interrupted. “And liking a man isn’t——”
And then she paused and looked down, blushing, while Taylor, in the act of vaulting over the rock, collapsed and sat on it instead, red of face and embarrassed.
For within a dozen paces of them, and looking rather embarrassed and self-conscious, himself, though with a twinkle in his eyes that made Taylor’s cheeks turn redder—was Bud Hemmingway.
“I’m beggin’ your pardon,” said the puncher; “but I’ve come to tell you that Neil Norton is here—again. He’s been settin’ on the porch for an hour or two—he says. But I think he’s stretching it. Anyway, he’s tired of waitin’ for you—he says—an’ he’s been wonderin’ if you was goin’ to set on that boulder all day!”