Again, Endicott laughed: "I suppose it will do us lots of good. I'll probably spend my days in the saddle and come home smelling of horses, and covered with alkali dust."
"Horses smell better than gas, anyway, and alkali dust is cleaner than coal-soot. Look, Win, quick! A family of Indians camped beside the trail—see the scrawny, sneaky-looking dogs and the ponies with their feet tied together, and the conical tepee. And, oh, on that red blanket—the darlingest little brown papoose! I can hardly wait to get into my riding clothes and gallop for miles! And, Win, dear, you've just got to promise me that if we do buy the ranch, you'll never bring a motor out here—not even a roadster—it would spoil everything!"
"Don't set your heart too strongly on buying that ranch," cautioned her husband.
"But the man said he'd sell at a reasonable figure."
"Yes, but you must remember that a 'reasonable figure', when you're talking about an outfit that runs ten thousand head of cattle mounts up into big money. It all depends upon the terms."
"Well, if he wants to sell his old ranch, he'd be foolish to haggle over a little thing like terms. Some way, I just feel it in my bones that we're going to buy. A woman has intuition—you wait and see."
"Colston was to meet us at Timber City today, and tomorrow we'll ride out and look over the ranch. Do you think you're up to a sixty-mile ride?"
"Sixty! I could ride six hundred!" The brake-shoes creaked as the driver drew his horses up for a breathing spell at the top of the divide. "See!" Alice cried, pointing far out into the foothills. "There is Timber City, with its little wooden buildings huddled against the pines exactly as it was a year ago today when we looked back at it from this very spot. And way beyond you can see the river glistening in the sun, and beyond that are the bad lands." Involuntarily she shuddered: "It's all as vivid as though it had happened yesterday—the dust storm, and the terrible thirst—only you and Tex cheated and gave me all the water."
Endicott nodded: "I don't think we'll ever forget it—it was a mighty close call for all of us." The stage descended the long slope and wound in and out among the foothills, its two occupants contenting themselves with watching the lazy wheeling of the buzzards against the blue, and the antics of the prairie dogs that scolded and chickered at the stage, only to dive incontinently into their holes at its approach. The little steepleless church loomed up before them, and Endicott glanced at his watch: "Four o'clock," he announced, "I wonder if Colston is waiting?"
"Well, if he is, he can wait a little longer," smiled Alice. "Because the first thing we do after we have removed some of this dust, will be to go right over and call on the Camerons—there's the cottage now, dear—just think, a year ago today we stood in that little corner room and Mr. Cameron pronounced the words that made us two the happiest people in the world—stop—please—Win! We're right in town! And if we hurry we can be there at the very same hour and minute we were there last year."