"Oh, but it's all so real! There's no sham about anything. They take you for just what you are worth out here, and not a cent more. There's no sham!"
"No, that's true. But everything seems so—so different."
"I know—there isn't romance enough for you. You'd like a horseman to wear a suit of armor, or come prancing up in a top hat and shiny boots. But these men, in their rough clothes and on their scraggy-looking ponies, can ride. I saw some of them just before supper. They can ride like the wind and pull up so short that it's a wonder they don't turn somersaults. I'm going to learn to ride that way."
"Alice, you're not!"
"Well, maybe not so well, of course," the younger girl admitted, as she finished braiding her hair for the night. "But I'm going to learn. I'll have to, anyhow, as I'm cast for a riding part in several scenes, and so are you."
"Well, then, I suppose I'll have to. But I hope I will get a gentle horse."
"Oh, Pete will see to that."
"Pete? Do you call him by his first name so soon?" asked Ruth rather shocked, as she shook out her robe, and ran a ribbon through the neck.
"Everyone calls him Pete; why shouldn't I?" laughed Alice. "He's awfully nice—and he's been married three times!"
"Did you ask him that?"