She caught his meaning and smiled in acknowledgment. "Thank you, but I don't want to drive. That's really the man's part, you know. I suppose," she added, "that you think me bold and mannish and coarse and everything else that a girl ought not to be, but I"—she turned away her face and her voice trembled—"but you can't understand, Mr. Holmes, what this desert means to me."
"Perhaps I don't understand," he said seriously. "But I am sure of this: somewhere back of every really great work that has ever been accomplished in any age there has been a woman like you."
Then they drove back to the hotel where she left him and drove to the barn herself. A few minutes later he saw her pass again, riding her own quick-stepping horse.
During the two weeks that followed before the Seer's return, while Abe Lee was busy getting ready for the work in Barbara's Desert, Willard Holmes and the girl were often together. The man from New York admitted somewhat proudly, Barbara thought—as if the very confession somehow established the superiority of the East—that he was shockingly ignorant of all things Western. But apparently overlooking the subtle assumption in the manner of his confession, she laughingly undertook his education. For one thing he must learn to ride.
"Really," he demurred, "I don't think I care for that particular amusement. I have never taken it up at home, you know, but of course if it is the thing to do, why—"
"Amusement!" she laughed. "Riding isn't an amusement; it's a necessity. The horse is our street car and railroad and steamboat. Where you think city blocks and squares we think miles; and where you think miles we think hundreds of miles. Two legs are not enough in this country, so we double the number and go on four. You'll find yourself wishing for eight before you get back from The King's Basin."
So, at her bidding, Texas Joe secured a horse for him and almost every afternoon the two were in their saddles. And every night over his evening cigar at the hotel the engineer found himself reviewing the incidents and conversations of the ride; forced to wonder at some new and unexpected revelation of the mind and character of this western girl who was so interested in the reclamation work and so unconscious of her womanly power. He came quickly to look forward to their hours together and to plan and carry out many conversational experiments. Invariably he had his reward.
One afternoon he tried skillfully to shape the conversation to the end that he might tell her—quite without ostentation—of the proud history and social position of his family and of his own rank in the upper eastern world.
She humored him patiently, helping him out with questions and artless, admiring exclamations and comments, until he was quite sure that she was properly impressed. Then she said, in a tone of honest sympathy: "But you mustn't let all this worry you, you know."
"Worry me?" he echoed in amazement.