“Now, Tavia!” gasped Dorothy. “If you don’t behave yourself——”
“Why, I am!” cried Tavia. “I think you are too particular for anything, Doro. Didn’t that large Little lady tell us he was perfectly all right?”
Dorothy was being jounced around too much just then to make reply. But she saw that Tavia had recovered completely from her “scare” and was looking for mischief.
Out on the open prairie the stars gave light enough for the girls to see Lance better. The track was broader, too, and the trio continued on, side by side, the cowboy riding between the two girls.
Lance was not a bad looking young man at all. Dorothy began to realize, too, that he was nowhere near as old as she had at first supposed. His out of door life had given him that air of maturity.
So, it troubled Dorothy when she saw that Tavia was determined to “buzz” the cowboy.
“Are you a really, truly cowboy?” the irrepressible asked, demurely.
“Well, yuh might call me that, Ma’am, though I wasn’t borned to it like some of these old-timers yuh’ll meet out yere.”
“Then you are not a native of the West?”
“Now you’ve said something, Ma’am. I come from back East; but t’was quite some time ago—believe me!”