"I've got to go back and get a paper Rob wants."
"Say!" Vashti called after her suddenly. "Let me go for you. I can ride over there on Geezer and back while you're gettin' turned round."
Without waiting for an answer the little girl ran to the corral, led out the pony, flung a saddle over his back, shoved the bridle over his ears, and came back to Harry on the run.
"Now, where's your paper?" Vashti asked. "You go on toward the bridge," she continued, when Harry had told her where to find the bill of sale. "I'll come across the scab land and meet you."
With envy and admiration and gratitude in her heart Harry watched the small figure in red calico speed away across the sagebrush.
"If I could only go like that!" she thought with a sigh. "Well, I guess I'm not too old to learn, and if Vashti will teach me, maybe I can teach her something she'd like to know."
She had scarcely five minutes to wait at the bridge before Vashti came up with the precious paper. "You'll have to jack them there plugs up some if you're goin' to make it," the little girl remarked. "Wait. I'll get you a willer."
Slipping off her horse, she went down the bank of the river. In a minute she returned with a long, stout willow wand. "'Tain't so good as a blacksnake, but it'll make 'em step along some."
"Thank you, Vashti. If I do get there, it will be entirely owing to you!" Harry's words made the small girl smile with pleasure.
"It's just as Bobs said," Harry confessed to herself. "They're as kind-hearted and friendly as can be when you once know them, and all the 'education' in the world isn't as valuable out here as what they know."