"Miss Blake? You mean the lady that wears pants? You don't mean it! Well, that's right amusing." He laughed.
Sheila stirred angrily. "I can't see why it's amusing."
He sobered at once. "Well, ma'am, maybe it isn't. No, I reckon it isn't.
How long will you stay?"
Sheila gave a big, sobbing sigh. "I don't know. If she likes me and if I'm happy, I'll stay there always." She added with a queer, dazed realization of the truth: "I've nowhere else to go."
"Haven't you any—folks?" he asked.
"No."
"Got tired of Millings?"
"Yes—very."
"I don't blame you! It's not much of a town. You'll like Hidden Creek. And Miss Blake's ranch is a mighty pretty place, lonesome but wonderfully pretty. Right on a bend of the creek, 'way up the valley, close under the mountains. But can you stand loneliness, Miss—What is your name?"
There were curious breaks in his manner of a Western cowboy, breaks that startled Sheila like little echoes from her life abroad and in the East. There was a quickness of voice and manner, an impatience, a hot and nervous something, and his voice and accent suggested training. The abrupt question, for instance, was not in the least characteristic of a Westerner.