When she returned to the porch Juliet had on a plain white dress with pink ribbons at elbows, neck, and waist. Larkin, who had always thrilled at her splendid physical vigor, found himself more than ever under the spell of her luxuriant vitality.
Her great dark eyes were remarkably lustrous and expressive, her black hair waved back from her brown face into a great braided coil, her features were not pretty so much as noble. Her figure, with its limber curves, was pliant and graceful in any position or emergency—the result of years in the saddle. Her feet and hands were small, the latter being firm but infinitely gentle in their touch.
“Well, have you forgotten all your Eastern education?” Larkin asked, smiling, as she sat down. “Have you reverted to your original untamed condition?”
“No, indeed, Bud. I have a reputation to keep up in that respect. The fact that I have had an Eastern education has made our punchers so proud that they can’t be lived with when they go to town, and lord it over everybody.”
“I suppose they all want to marry you?”
“Yes, singly or in lots, and sometimes I’m sorry it can’t be done, I love them all so much. But tell 24 me, Bud, what brings you out West in general and here in particular?”
“Probably you don’t know that a year and a half ago my father died,” and Larkin’s face shadowed for a moment with retrospection. “Well, he did, and left me most of his estate. I was sick of it there, and I vowed I would pull up stakes and start somewhere by myself. So I went up to Montana in the vicinity of the Musselshell Forks and bought a ranch and some stock.”
“Cattle?”
“No, sheep. The best merino I ever saw—”
“Bud Larkin! You’re not a sheepman?”