“Arrah, ye’re wrong!” declared Golightly; “they do be sayin’ Dell av th’ Double D is nervier than any mon in these parts. She can hit a squirrel in th’ eye as far as she can git a sight av him, an’ she can shtand aff twinty feet an’ throw th’ p’int av a bowie through anny pip ye name in a playin’-card.”
“Waugh! Ye’re gittin’ me plum interested; but go lightly, will ye, ef thet’s yer name. What ye tell me is more’n ary woman kin do.”
“Yez don’t know Dell av th’ Double D,” muttered Golightly.
As she came loping easily toward the trapper and the Irishman, perfect mistress of her horse and her lithe body swaying rhythmically in the saddle, the girl was certainly a “picture.” Nomad, who cared little for the sex feminine, felt a mighty stirring of admiration in his old heart. Certainly, Dell of the Double D appealed to his admiration for the picturesque.
The girl could not have been more than nineteen or twenty years of age, and that she was athletic by training and temperament was manifest in every graceful move.
Her blouselike waist was of softest doeskin, fringed and beaded and secured about her trim waist by a carved Mexican belt, from which depended an ornate knife-sheath, showing the pearl handle of a bowie; her short skirt was of buckskin, likewise fringed and beaded; below the skirt’s edge were laced tan leggings, and below the leggings were small russet shoes, with silver spurs at the heels. Her hat was a rakish brown sombrero.
Her riding gear was decorated with silver trimmings, which dazzlingly reflected the sun.
The cayuse, white and pink-nosed, was as smooth as satin.