"A girl—dressed like that—and carrying a revolver! Just a common 'Susie!'" gasped Cordelia.
"Yes—just a common 'Susie,'" twinkled Genevieve.
"But I thought she was a—a cowboy," quavered Cordelia. "You said they'd be here in—in all their war paint!"
From behind them sounded a muffled snort and a low-voiced:
"Boys, she thinks that's a cowboy! Come on—say we show 'em! Eh?"
Genevieve laughed softly at what Cordelia had said, and at the disappointment in her voice.
"Cowboys? Well, they are here," she acknowledged with twitching lips, "and in their war paint, too—of a kind! They're right here—Why, they're gone," she broke off. "Never mind," she laughed, as she caught sight of a silk hat and a black coat hurrying toward a group of saddled ponies. "I reckon you'll see all the cowboys you want to before you go back East again. Now come up and meet Susie—and she hasn't, really, any revolver there, Cordelia, in spite of that cartridge belt and holster. She's always rigging up that way. She likes it!"
Susie proved to be "a girl just like us," as Cordelia amazedly expressed it to Alma Lane. She was certainly a very pleasant one, they all decided. But even Susie could not keep their eyes from wandering to the unfamiliar scene around them.
It was a bare little station set in the midst of a bare little prairie town, and quite unlike anything the Easterners had ever seen before. Broad, dusty streets led seemingly nowhere. Low, straggling houses stretched out lazy lengths of untidiness, except where a group of taller, more pretentious buildings indicated the stores, a hotel or two, several boarding houses, and numerous saloons and dance halls.
From the station doorway, a blanketed Indian looked out with stolid, unsmiling face. Leaning against a post a dreamy-eyed Mexican in tight trousers, red sash, and tall peaked hat, smoked a cigarette. Halfway down the platform a tired-looking man in heavy cowhide boots and rough clothes, watched beside a huge canvas-topped wagon beyond which could be seen the switching tails of six great oxen.