A smile broke all over the somewhat pinched face of the strange tramp. That smile was so engaging, so sunny, so boyish that the cowpuncher returned it with a characteristic grin of his own.
“D-you really mean to say that I’m engaged?”
“You betchu.”
“Thanks awfully, old man,” cried the other cordially, and extended his white hand, which gripped the horny one of the cowpuncher, at rest on his leather-clad knee.
Bully Bill rode off at a slow lope, and as he rode, he steadily chewed. Once or twice he grunted, and once he slapped his leg and made a sound that was oddly like a hoarse guffaw. In the wake of the loitering horse, carrying his now sadly-battered grip in his hand, the Englishman plugged along, and as he came he whistled a cheery strain of music.
CHAPTER II
Sandy made three somersaults of glee on the turf, and at his last turn-over, his head came into contact with something hard. He rubbed said head, and at the same time observed that which had pained him. It was a large, old-fashioned gold locket, studded with rubies and diamonds.
“Holy Salmon!” ejaculated the highly-elated boy. In an instant he had seized the bridle of his horse, and was on him. He went up the hill on a run, and began calling outside the house, while still on horse.
“Hilda! I say, Hilda! Come on out! Looka here what I found!”
A girl, skin bronzed by sun and wind, with chocolate-coloured eyes and hair and a certain free grace of motion and poise, came on to the wide verandah. Sandy had ridden his horse clear to the railing, and now he excitedly held up the trinket in his hand, and then tossed it to Hilda, who caught it neatly in her own. Turning it over, the girl examined to find with admiration and curiosity, and, with feminine intuition, she found the spring and opened the locket. Within, the lovely, pictured face of a woman in low-cut evening dress, looked back from the frame. On the opposite side, a lock of dead-gold hair curled behind the glass.