“I would in ordinary times.” She looked at Gordon, who had now reined in. “But I cannot pay regular wages just now.”
“He’s willing to wait, like us,” Bull began. “He’s—”
“—out for experience,” Gordon put in. “To tell the truth, Miss Carleton, I am absolutely green. I doubt whether you’ll find me worth my board.”
He had doffed his hat and the attitude of respect accentuated the quiet reserve of his tone and manner. After a thoughtful pause, during which she took him in from top to toe in a quick, feminine survey, she broke out with a comical little laugh. “If it wasn’t so nice, it would be ridiculous. While the gringos on other haciendas are simply streaking for the border, you men insist on working here for nothing. Whatever is the matter with you?”
She may have read the answer in Gordon’s eyes and resented the indignity it offered her independence. Or the feeling underneath her sudden stiffening may have rooted deeper. Be a young man ever so comely, a girl ever so pretty, there will flash between them on first meeting the subtle challenge of sex; instinctive defiance based through love’s history to the far time when every girl ran like a deer from a possible lover and only gave in after he had proved his manhood by carrying her off. It passed in a flash, for, noticing her stiffen, Gordon reduced his gaze to respectful attention.
Subtle as it was, Bull had still noticed the by-play. “Looks like she’d taken a down on him.”
But even as the doubt formed in his mind it was removed by her laughing comment: “I suppose I’ll have to stand for it. But you must be starving. Let us get on to the house.”
As they rode along, moreover, Bull noted certain swift, stealthy glances with which she took complete census of Gordon’s clean profile, strong jaw, deep chest, flat flanks; signs of a secret and healthy curiosity.
“She’s a-setting up an’ taking notice.” He winked, as it were, at himself. “I reckon, Bull, you kin leave the rest to natur’.”