"But, even if he did, we could easily pick up his trail," persisted the girl.
"Dead easy." The man was battling with an impulse to tell the girl that his companion upon the river was a woman. The whole thing was so absurdly simple—but was it? Somehow, he could not bring himself to tell this girl—she might not understand—she might think—with an effort he dismissed the matter from his mind. She'll find out soon enough when we get there. He knew without looking at her that the girl's eyes were upon him. "Heavy goin'," he observed, abruptly.
"Yes."
Another long silence, this time broken by the Texan: "I don't get you quite," he said, "you're different from—from most women."
"How, different?"
"Why—altogether different. You don't dress like—like a nester's girl—nor talk like one, neither."
The girl's lips smiled, but the man could see that the blue-black eyes remained sombre: "I've been East at school. I've only been home a month."
"Learn how to rope a horse, back East? An' how to ride? It's a cinch you never learnt it in a month."
"Oh, I've always known that. I learned it when I was a little bit of a girl—mostly from the boys at the Y Bar."
"The Y Bar?"