"I'll bet it's the mail instead of—"
"You lose," muttered Hepburn, getting to his feet as a buckboard swung around the bend.
"An' she sure's come to stay!" from Jimmy as he closed his knife with an air of finality.
The body of the wagon was piled high with trunks and bags and beside the driver sat a very small woman. That she was not of the west, not the sort of woman these men had been accustomed to deal with, was evident from the clothes she wore, but at least one of them remarked that she was not wholly without the qualities essential to the frontier for, when the driver dropped down to open the gate, he gave her the reins to the lathered, excited horses which had brought her from the railroad. As soon as the gate swung open they sprang forward, but she put her weight on the reins and spoke with confident authority and wrenched them back.
"Not exactly helpless, anyhow," Tom Beck said to himself.
He was the only one of the group who did not walk across toward the cottonwoods which sheltered the long, red ranch house beside the creek. He sat there, braiding his belt, an indefinable half smile on his face.
The girl—for girlishness was her outstanding quality—jumped out unassisted. She looked about slowly, at the house first of all, then at the low stable and the corrals and, lastly, down the creek, on either side of which the hills rose sharply, giving a false appearance of narrowness to the bottoms, and her eyes rested for a long moment on the ridges far below, blue and sharp in the crystal distance.
She was unaware that the driver was waiting for her to give further directions and that the three others had come close and stopped, waiting for her to notice them, for she said aloud, as though to herself:
"For a beginning, this is quite remarkable!" Then she laughed sharply, with a hard mirthless quality, and turned about. She was genuinely surprised to confront the men; evidence of this was in her eyes, which were large and remarkably blue. She smiled brightly and said:
"Oh, I didn't know I was overlooking any one! I suppose you men belong here, on the ranch, and it's likely you've been waiting for the new owner to come. Well, here I am! I'm Jane Hunter and I want to know who you are. Now what is your name?"