"Howdy," said Bob, still keeping an impassive face.
There came another moment of thought. Then:
"I'm Dale Dawson, of Sunlight Patch, in the mountings, suh." He said this in so clever an imitation of their own introductions that it seemed a caricature.
"Chapeaux bas!" the Colonel murmured, throwing Jane into the most unlady-like fit of giggles.
"Where did it come from?" Bob asked later. He was riding with her a hundred yards behind the buggy that held the Colonel and Dale, the old rifle sticking out at the back like a bean pole.
"A heaven-sent deliverer," she quietly answered.
"I appreciate that," he said, in a more serious vein.
Her very reticence told him how deeply she had been shocked, and that it was a subject to be avoided, for the present, at least. Bob was quick to divine situations. For the moment, then, he drifted into another channel, saying with a laugh that could hardly have been called spontaneous:
"If he's an example of celestial types I'll—"
"Lead a different life?" she interrupted, smiling.