Molly’s surprise as she faced him was no greater than that of the man. Jim could scarcely believe his senses as he gazed into the pretty face, with its big, grey, innocent eyes. He had been prepared for some rough cattleman; he had expected such. In the coated, divided riding-suit he had never for a moment looked for a girl. A white girl alone in these hills was a thought that had never entered his head. Now he was glad he had flung caution to the winds.
It was Molly who offered greeting, and it came in an impulsive expression of surprise.
“Why,” she exclaimed, “I just hadn’t a notion——” And she broke off in a little laugh of embarrassment.
“It doesn’t seem I had either, till—you turned your pinto around.”
Both were laughing. To Molly the man’s tone matched the expression of his eyes. It was deep and resonant, and reminded her of the organ she remembered to have heard at the Catholic church in Hartspool when she used to visit it during her father’s life. To the man the moment was one of sheer enjoyment. Beyond his sister, and the dusky wife of Dan Quinlan, he had not encountered a woman in many months.
His horse flung up its head and investigated the pinto. In a moment the man was forgotten in Molly’s admiration of the horse he was riding.
“My!” she cried. “What a lovely, lovely beast.”
Pryse leant over and patted the sweat-dried neck of his horse.
“Beelzebub’s quite a dandy,” he admitted, with smiling pride. “He was raised on a race-track down Kentucky way. But say, they’ve both finished watering, and the creek’s ice-cold.”
Molly nodded and urged her mare. And they both passed up the boulder-littered bed of the mountain torrent.