"No," she smiled. "Just across the valley."
"Nix on that!" he cried sharply, as if in sudden alarm. "They been talking that way to me ever since I got lost the eighty-second time. 'Down to a cross road,' they'd say, lying as would shame a second story man caught with the goods. 'Then turn to your right and go straight ahead and it's just a little piece.' I ain't ever hurt you, lady, and I wouldn't, not for a hundred dollars. But I'm awful sore being told it's just over yonder. How far is it, measured in something civilised, like blocks?"
He was the most anxiously earnest little man Wanda had ever seen, and the most dejectedly miserable. Still vastly amused she began to feel a little sorry for him. He was such a veritable babe in the wood for helplessness.
"Really, it isn't far," she assured him. "Just a trifle over three miles."
"Lord," he groaned, staring at her reproachfully. "The way you folks talk about distance out here makes my flesh creep. But, say, is that the nearest place?"
"Yes."
"Then can I go home with you, Miss? And will you scare up something for me to eat? I'm so starved I'd eat egg shells."
He was such a harmless looking, innocent, pitiable creature with his plaintive voice and childish eyes that her amusement turned to pity.
"If you are very hungry and tired," she suggested gently, "you can lunch with me now. I always bring something along to eat."
His eyes brightened and a smile set quick dimples in the round face. He released his bridle reins promptly, put his two hands on the horn of the saddle—Wanda noticed that they were hands like a girl's, soft and white with beautiful, tapering fingers and rosy nails—got a stiff leg over the cantle, wriggled over on his stomach and as his horse moved a little he fell off. For a moment he remained sitting.