“Then why didn’t you save the pony first?” she demanded hotly.
“How could I,” he returned, fixing her with an amused glance, “with you looking so appealingly at me?”
She turned abruptly and left him, walking to a flat rock and seating herself upon it, wringing the water from her skirts, trying to get her hair out of her eyes, feeling very miserable, and wishing devoutly that Dakota might drown himself—after he had succeeded in pulling the pony from the quicksand.
But Dakota did not drown himself. Nor did he pull the pony out of the quicksand. She watched him as he rode to the water’s edge and looked at the animal. Her heart sank when he turned and looked gravely at her.
“I reckon your pony’s done for, ma’am,” he said. “There isn’t anything of him above the sand but his head and a little of his neck. He’s too far gone, ma’am. In half an hour he’ll——”
Sheila stood up, wet and excited. “Can’t you do something?” she pleaded. “Couldn’t you pull him out with your lariat—like you did me?”
There was a grim humor in his smile. “What do you reckon would have happened to you if I had tried to pull you out by the neck?” he asked.
“But can’t you do something?” she pleaded, her icy attitude toward him melting under the warmth of her affection and sympathy for the unfortunate pony. “Please do something!” she begged.
His face changed expression and he tapped one of his holsters significantly. “There’s only this left, I reckon. Pulling him out by the neck would break it, sure. And it’s never a nice thing to see—or hear—a horse or a cow sinking in quicksand. I’ve seen it once or twice and——”
Sheila shuddered and covered her face with her hands, for his words had set her imagination to working.