"Yes, Bud?" smiled Grace encouragingly. "What is it?"
"It's yourself, Miss. The bunch here reckoned as I, bein' gifted with the knack of gab, it fer me to speak for 'em. They're tongue- tied when there's a woman on the premises."
"What is it the 'bunch' wishes you to say to me?" asked the
Overland girl.
"They seen you bust the black bronc' this morning, and bein' as no female woman ever pulled off a stunt like it in these parts, they reckoned it might not make you mad if they told you you was all to the good."
"Thank you—thank you all." Grace waved a hand and smiled at the eager faces of the cowboys who, lined up on their ponies, just to the rear of Bud and a companion, were eagerly hanging on Bud's words, but not taking their gaze from Grace Harlowe's face for an instant.
"The bunch reckoned, too, that bein' a champeen mebby you'd take a little present from 'em. I ain't much on spreadin' the dough, even if I have some gab," added Bud, floundering for the rest of his speech.
"Bud, I'm just as excited as you are, and, were I in your place, I should not know what to say next," comforted Grace seriously. "What is it that the 'bunch' wished you to give to me?"
Bud reached a hand behind him, whereupon his companion placed something in it. Emma Dean whispered to Nora that it looked like a blacksnake all coiled up and ready to jump.
"This here," resumed the cowboy, holding up the coil that had been passed to him, "is a real Mexican lariat, made by a Greaser, but real horsehair, and warranted not to kink or to miss in the hands of a lady. The bunch reckons they'd like to give it to you to remember 'em by," concluded Bud, stepping forward and handing the lariat to Grace.
"Bud—boys, I don't need anything to make me remember you, but of course I will accept your thoughtful gift. I never threw a rope and could not hit the side of a barn with one, but now that you have given me this beautiful piece of rope I am going to learn to throw it. Mr. Lang, will you teach me how to rope—to throw the lasso?"