"Good!" He held out his hand and she took it, and the bargain was sealed. He then returned to his work about the camp.
"Isn't it glorious!" the girl cried, as she looked about her. "It's enough to do an artist all over new." The grass and the willows sparkled with dew-drops. The sky, cloudless save for one long, low, orange-and-purple cape of glory just above the sunrise, canopied a limitless spread of plain to the north and east, while the high butte to the back was like the wall of a temple.
"Oh, let's take a run up that hill," Elsie said, with sudden change of tone. "Come!" and, giving Curtis no time to protest, she scuttled away, swift as a partridge. He followed her, calling:
"Wait a moment, please!"
When he overtook her at the foot of the first incline she was breathless, but her eyes were joyous as a child's and her cheeks were glowing.
"Let me help you," he said; "and if you slip, don't put your hand on the ground; that is the way men get snake-bitten."
"Snakes!" She stopped short. "I forgot—are there rattlesnakes here?"
"There is always danger on the sunny side of these buttes at this time of the year, especially where the rocks crop out."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't give me time."