[He had only to lift his voice, and the long spell would be broken]
[Beatrice found herself telling what had happened]
THE HILL OF ADVENTURE
CHAPTER I
GRAY CLOUD MOUNTAIN
It was with feelings of doubt that were not very far from dismay that Beatrice Deems watched her new acquaintance, Dan O’Leary, saddle her recently acquired horse. She had ridden before, of course, in the tan-bark ring of the riding-school or on shady bridle-paths in the park, always on well-broken steeds whose beauty and grooming were equaled only by their good manners. But now, as she stood in her short khaki riding-skirt and her high boots, waiting outside the great dilapidated shed that, in this little Montana town, did duty as a livery-stable, she was beginning to wonder whether she really knew anything about horses at all. Certainly she had never thought of riding anything like this plunging creature who stood straight up on his hind legs one moment, then dropped to his forefeet and stood on them in turn, with the ease of a circus performer.
She had spent only two days in Ely, the little town planted beside Broken Bow Creek, in the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. At first she had thought that the village, with its scattered box-like houses and dusty, shadeless street, was disappointingly unlike the West of the pictures-books and the movies. The antics of her new horse, however, were disturbingly like what she had witnessed in Wild West shows.
“’Name’s Buck,” volunteered the man who was struggling with the saddle, and added, though in a tone that seemed to indicate the explanation as quite unnecessary, “It’s on account of his color, you know.”
“Oh!” returned Beatrice, a little blankly. For the life of her, she could think of nothing else to say. She had yet to learn that all Western ponies of that golden buckskin shade of coat bear the same name. At the moment she was tempted to believe that the title had something to do with the way in which the horse was humping his back like a gigantic cat and jumping up and down on his nimble white forefeet.
“Your father went out on the range and chose the horse himself when he was out here getting your house ready,” Dan went on. “He couldn’t have found another pony in the valley that could go like this one.”