“It was confidence more than bravery,” she told him frankly.
“But you made it easy for me to do my part,” he insisted.
“That was because—well, as I see it now—because there was no moment when I did not feel that we should come out of it all right.”
“Then I must tell you,” he said, “to whom we are indebted for our escape. Somewhere in the woods, the fields, or the highways on the other side of the river is a Guernsey heifer living just now in the joy or sorrow of newly gained freedom. But for that we might not be here in fairly dry clothes.”
They had emerged from the grove, and he pointed toward the opposite shore, where the white buildings of the Social Dairy were still visible, though the twilight was almost gone.
“The heifer was born and bred in our little colony over there,” he went on, “and until an hour ago her world was bounded by its fences. But she jumped our tallest barrier, and I was after her with the lariat when the bridge broke.”
“I admit our debt to the heifer,” she said, laughing. “To her we owe the rope—but not the throwing. I was unaware that anyone short of the American cowboy could wield a lasso so well.”
“It was in America that I got an inkling of the art,” he explained. “Once the life of a California ranchero seemed to me the one all desirable—a dream which I pursued even to the buying of a ranch.”
“And the awakening?” she asked, a little preoccupied. His reference to the Social Dairy had solved for her the riddle of his identity. She knew him now for the leader of a certain radical group in the Chamber of Deputies.
“The awakening came soon enough,” he said. “At the end of two years the gentleman of whom I bought the dream consented to take it back at a handsome profit to himself.”