"Yes, if you please." It seemed good to stand there in the growing darkness, and another drink would give him fully a minute. He watched her supple figure as she stooped to refill the tin cup. What perfect physiques some of these Indian girls possessed! He did not wonder so much now that some men forgot their families and names for these dark-skinned women.
"I am coming to-morrow for the horses—in the morning," he repeated foolishly, returning the cup. She did not speak again, so bidding her a courteous good-night he mounted his horse and rode slowly into the gathering dusk.
Hope stood there for a moment, returning to her study of the water; then two of the breed girls came toward her. One of them was giggling audibly.
"We heard him," said Mary. "He thought you was one of us. It'll be fun to fool him. He's new out here, and don't know much, anyhow. He's Edward Livingston, an Englishman, an' has got a sheep ranch about three miles over there."
"A sheep-man!" exclaimed Hope, "Isn't that too bad!"
"You hate sheep-men, too?" asked the older girl.
"No, I don't know that I hate them, but there's a feeling—a sort of something one can't get over, something that grows in the air if you're raised among cattle. I despise sheep, detest them. They spoil our cattle range." Then after a short pause: "It's too bad he isn't a cattle-man!"
"That's what I think," said Mary, "because the men are all gettin' down on him. He runs his sheep all over their range, an' they're makin' a big talk."
"You shouldn't tell things, Mary, they're only talkin', anyway," reproved the older girl.
"Talkin'! Well, I should say so, an' you bet they mean business! But Miss Hathaway—Hope—don't care, an' I don't care neither, if he gets into a scrape; only he's got such a nice, pleasant face, an' he ain't on to the ways out here yet, neither—an' I don't care what the men say! Tain't as if he meant anything through real meanness."