The vague "any time" occurred three days later. Young VB made a special trip over the hills to the S Bar S. The girl was stretched in a hammock, reading, when he rode up, and at the sound of his horse she scrambled to her feet, flushed, and evidently disconcerted.
"I'd given you up!" she cried.
"In three days?" taking the hand she offered.
"Well—most boys in the East would have come the next morning—if they were really interested."
"This is Colorado," he reminded her.
He sat crosslegged on the ground at her feet, and they talked of the book she had been reading. It was a novel of music and a musician and a rare achievement, she said. He questioned her about the story, and their talk drifted to music, on which they both could converse well.
"You don't know what it means—to sit here and talk of these things with you," he said hungrily.
"Well, I should like to know," she said, leaning forward over her knees.
For two long hours they talked as they never had talked before; of personal tastes, of kindred enthusiasms, of books and plays and music and people. They went into the ranch house, and Gail played for him—on the only grand piano in that section of the state. They came out, and she saddled her pony to ride part way back through the hills with him.
"Adios, my friend," she called after him, as he swung away from her.