The Texan stepped to her side and, reaching for the glass, set it gently upon the table. As his hand touched hers a thrill shot through his veins, and with it came a sudden longing to take the hand in his own—to gather this girl into his arms and to hold her tight against his wildly throbbing heart. The next moment he was speaking in slow measured words. "They all do—me along with the rest. But, I ain't drinkin' now."
CHAPTER XI
AT THE MOUTH OF THE COULEE
The girl's eyes flashed a swift glance into his, and once more raised to the bandage that encircled his head, then, very abruptly, she turned her back toward him, and busied herself at the stove. A plate of sizzling bacon and a steaming cup of coffee were whisked onto the table and, as the cowboy seated himself, she made up a neat flat package of sandwiches.
As Tex washed down the bacon and bread with swallows of scalding coffee, she slipped into an adjoining room and closed the door. Just as he finished she reappeared, booted and spurred, clad in a short riding skirt of corduroy, her hands encased in gauntleted gloves, and a Stetson set firmly upon the black coiled braids. A silk scarf of a peculiar burnt orange hue was knotted loosely about her neck.
Never in the world, thought the man as his eyes rested for a moment upon the soft, full throat that rose from the open collar of her shirt, had there been such absolute perfection of womanhood; and his glance followed the lithe, swift movements with which she caught up the package of lunch and stepped to the door. "I'm going with you," she announced. "Father's up at the lambing camp, and I've fed all the little beasties." A lamb tumbled awkwardly about her legs and she cuffed it playfully.
As the Texan followed her to the corral, his thoughts flashed to Alice Endicott lying as he had left her beside the river—flashed backward to the moment of their first meeting, to the wild trip through the bad lands, to their parting a year ago when she had left him to become the bride of his rival, to the moment she had appeared as an apparition back there in the saloon, and to the incidents of their wild adventure on the flat-boat. Only last night, it was—and it seemed ages ago.
Thoughts of her made him strangely uncomfortable, and he swore softly under his breath, as his glance rested upon the girl who had stooped to release a rope from a saddle that lay beside the corral gate. She coiled it deftly, and stepping into the enclosure, flipped the noose over the head of a roman-nosed roan. The Texan stared. There had been no whirling of the rope, only a swift, sure throw, and the loop fastened itself about the horse's throat close under his chin. The cowboy stepped to relieve her of the rope, but she motioned him to the other animal, a gentle looking bay mare. "I'll ride Blue, you take the mare," she said.