“All right, Mister Man,” she threatened balefully. “You can talk about your grips and death touches and all the rest, but that's all man's game. I know something that will beat them all, that will make a strong man as helpless as a baby. Wait a minute till I get it. There. Shut your eyes. Ready? I won't be a second.”
He waited with closed eyes, and then, softly as rose petals fluttering down, he felt her lips on his mouth.
“You win,” he said in solemn ecstasy, and passed his arms around her.
CHAPTER XIV
In the morning Billy went down town to pay for Hazel and Hattie. It was due to Saxon's impatient desire to see them, that he seemed to take a remarkably long time about so simple a transaction. But she forgave him when he arrived with the two horses hitched to the camping wagon.
“Had to borrow the harness,” he said. “Pass Possum up and climb in, an' I'll show you the Double H Outfit, which is some outfit, I'm tellin' you.”
Saxon's delight was unbounded and almost speechless as they drove out into the country behind the dappled chestnuts with the cream-colored tails and manes. The seat was upholstered, high-backed, and comfortable; and Billy raved about the wonders of the efficient brake. He trotted the team along the hard county road to show the standard-going in them, and put them up a steep earthroad, almost hub-deep with mud, to prove that the light Belgian sire was not wanting in their make-up.
When Saxon at last lapsed into complete silence, he studied her anxiously, with quick sidelong glances. She sighed and asked:
“When do you think we'll be able to start?”