He sprawled easily in the saddle, leaning his crossed arms on the pommel and gazing out over the sun-shot valley to the group of buildings and corrals at Bar-7. At least she rode somewhere every afternoon, and he would see her leave. If she turned down the valley road or up the cañon—well, that emergency could be met. He thought of speeches to make it plain that he had not followed her, daring to approach her in his mind, but knowing well that he would probably hide at sight of her.
A half hour he waited so, beholding visions of their accidental meeting. Then his pulses raced. He saw the stocky-barreled Cooney led from the corral to the front of the house by Red Phinney. He could almost discern the Sabbath finery of Red across that crystal mile—for this was the breathing day of the week, when faces were rasped cruelly by indifferent razors, and fine raiment was donned, black trousers and gay, clean shirts and neckerchiefs of flaming silk.
He could not see her mount. The ranch house hid that spectacle. But she rode into view presently, putting Cooney first to his little fox trot and then to a lope, as the road wound among the willows.
He straightened in the saddle as she reached the creek. He was eager to retreat, yet feared to have his cowardice detected. And when Cooney halted midway of the stream, pawing its rocky bed and making a pretense of thirst, the woman looked up and saw her watcher on the trail. She waved the gauntleted hand that held her quirt, and he found himself holding his hat in his hand with an affectation of ease. Then each laughed, and, though neither could hear the other, it was as if they had laughed together in some little flurry of understanding. He could still pretend to have happened there at that moment, he reflected. And this brought him courage as he saw her give Cooney his way where the trail branched. When the little horse had carried her to the summit and stood in panting gratitude, the waiting youth evolved a splendid plan for hiding his fright. He dismounted and forced himself to go coolly and take her hand. Perhaps it was as well that he had not trusted himself to remain in the saddle at that first moment. But when the thing was really over he no longer made a secret of his delight at her coming. His first anxious look at her face had shown him the cordial friendliness of the preceding day. She was amused by him, he could see that, and did not resent it; but she was kind, and in his joy at this he babbled, at first, with little coherence.
"I rode right over here to make sure I would see you," he began, "and then if you rode down the valley, or up, I was going to loaf along and find you by accident, and pretend I was hunting a colt. I was going to be afraid the mountain lions had got it." He laughed immoderately at this joke. "And while I waited for you I kept trying to think how fine it would have sounded last night if you had said, 'I think I shall go over and look at your place again to-morrow.' I couldn't make your voice sound true, though. It's a good thing we needn't try to paint voices."
They were riding together over the first stretch of meadow. It seemed to have been agreed without words that they should ride to the lake cabin.
"To paint voices?" she queried.
"Voices, yes; how could yours be painted? It couldn't. You'll see that. I thought of a jumble of things—wine and velvet, for instance; some kind of rich, golden wine and purple velvet, and then, warm flickers of light in a darkened room, and a big bronze bell struck with something soft that would muffle it and yet make everything about it tremble. You see, don't you?" he concluded with a questioning look of deep seriousness.
His own voice was low and eager, with its undernote of wistfulness. Already he had renewed upon her that companionable charm which she had felt the day before, a charm compounded of half-shy directness, of flashes of self-forgetfulness, of quick-trusting comradeship. She rejected a cant phrase of humorous disclaimer that habit brought to her lips. It would puzzle or affront his forthrightness.
"Very well, we'll agree that my voice can't be painted," she said at last. "So let us talk of you."