“And they let him?” demanded Marion, thinking of the irrepressible cow-punchers.
“Oh, he’s all right!” Claire assured her. “That is, after you get used to him. The men had all sorts of fun with him the first summer he was here. But he took all their fun good-naturedly, and showed them he had pluck too. They began to like him. Everybody likes him, and so will you.”
“But in the name of––who is he?”
The little man had descended like a parachute from his pony, and was now bobbing rapidly up the graveled walk.
“Smythe,” explained Claire hurriedly. “But he’s here now––I’ll let him tell you––he likes to talk.”
At the foot of the steps he caught sight of the two women in the doorway; removed his wonderful headgear with an eighteenth-century gesture; ducked his 54 head in a twentieth-century bow; and smiled. Claire stepped quickly out on the veranda.
“Oh, Mr. Smythe!” she cried gaily. “I’m so glad to see you. Come in!”
He was an undersized young man, immaculately dressed in brown tweeds and shining boots, a very high white collar and a sky-blue tie. The sombrero swinging in his hand was quite new, ornamented with a broad band of stamped leather, and it had the widest brim obtainable at the shop in Denver where a specialty is made of equipping the tenderfoot for life in the cattle country.
Smythe took Claire’s proffered hand, and bent over it as if he had thought of kissing it, but lacked the courage of his gallantry. Claire introduced him to Marion, answered his questions about Seth, and then fluttered away to the kitchen, where she had an angel cake in the oven not to be entrusted to the cook.
“I arrived only yesterday, Miss Gaylord,” Smythe chirped. “But I’ve heard of you already.”