He looked at her curiously.
“Of course not,” he said apologetically. “You’re f’m the city. East, maybe?”
“Yes, I’m from New York.”
“Then it’s natch’ral. Everybody in these parts has heard o’ Sunnysides, though it’s not many that’s seen him.”
“Please tell me about him.”
The man’s eyes brightened a little.
“He’s got some strange blood in him,” he began. “Nobody knows what it is, but th’ ain’t another one o’ that color, nor his devil spirit, in the whole bunch. The rest of ’em’s just ordinary wild horses runnin’ up an’ down the sandhills of the San Luis. There’s people’t say he’s a ghost horse. Fact! An’ they say’t he’ll never stay caught. I don’t know. It’s certain’t he’s been caught three times,––not countin’ the times cow-punchers an’ others has thought they’d caught him, but hadn’t. The first time he was caught actual he broke out o’ the strongest corral in the San Luis––at night––an’ nobody sees hide nor hair of ’im––not so much as a flicker o’ yellow in the moonlight. An’ back he was, headin’ the herd again.
“Nex’ time Thad Brinker ropes him. Thad’s the topnotch cow-puncher between the Black Hills an’ the Rio Grande, an’ he comes all the way f’m Dakoty when he hears the yarn about Sunnysides. Thad gits fourteen 23 men to help him round up the bunch, an’ then he ropes the gold feller after a fight that’s talked about yit in the San Luis. He ropes him. An’ then what does Brinker do?”
He looked at Marion as if he dared her to make as many guesses as she wished. She shook her head.
“You ain’t the only one that’d never hit it,” he went on with satisfaction. “Thad ropes him, an’ while they lay there restin’, Sunnysides all tied up so he can’t move, an’ Brinker rubbin’ some bumps he’d come by in the fracas, just then the red comes up onto Sangre de Cristo. Brinker sees it––Ever seen the sunset color on Sangre de Cristo? No? That’s a pity, Miss. Indeed, that’s a pity. But you’re f’m Noo York, you said.”