"If you'll examine that saddle horn, you'll discover that the shot which tore it was fired from a gun held so close that the powder burned the leather. More: that it was fired so recently that the smell of powder is still there.
"There is something rotten, brother, in a locality nearer than Denmark!"
Beck whistled softly to himself.
CHAPTER XII
A NEIGHBORLY CALL
The mountains which had been brown and saffron when Jane Hunter came to take possession of her ranch grew tinted with green as grasses sprouted under the coaxing sun. Piñons were edged with lighter tints, contrasting sharply with the deep color of older growth. Service bushes turned cream color with bloom and sage put out new growth; calves, high-tailed and venturesome, frolicked between frequent meals from swollen udders, birds nested and shy mountain flowers completed their scant cycle.
No life remained arrested and with the rest the girl developed. She took on a more robust color, her eyes which had always been clear and cool, possessed a different look and a thin sprinkling of tiny freckles appeared across her nose. She had taken to the ways of the mountains easily. Her modish clothing was discarded and she wore brightly colored shirts, a brimmed hat, drab riding skirt and the smallest pair of boots that had ever been manufactured in that country.
Two-Bits was wide-eyed in his enthusiasm.
"My gosh, Reverend!" he whispered, "look at them boots! Ain't they th' grandest little things you ever seen?... Gosh, they're too little for any spurs she can buy, ain't they? Gosh ..."—in helpless admiration.