Curiosity and amazement were struggling for place in her mind. Even at a distance she had recognised the stranger was a woman. Then, too, her horse was so different from the bronchos she was accustomed to. And instantly her thoughts flung back to the white-haired, city-clad man on his black thoroughbred. Could this woman by any chance be connected with Silver-Thatch? It must be. Where else could she have come from?
Her eyes were full of the questions in her mind as she gazed into the stranger’s face.
“Howdy.”
A curious awkwardness had taken possession of Molly. She wanted to say something cordial. But, strangely enough, the best she was capable of at the moment was a simple, almost meaningless “Howdy.”
A mental reservation warned Blanche that Jim’s description of Molly Marton had by no means been a man’s exaggeration. The sweet, shy face gazing out of the sun-bonnet at her struck her as a picture such as she had never before beheld.
“I’m just dying to eat, and so is Pedro,” she said with a laugh, patting her horse. “You’re Molly Marton. He told me your name,” she went on, indicating Lightning still waiting in the background. “Mine’s Pryse—Blanche Pryse—and I guess I’ve ridden farther than I ought. May I off-saddle?”
Molly thrust out a brown hand. She felt that the girl’s introduction demanded it. And, in a moment, it was clasped in the two gauntleted palms with which Blanche took possession of it.
“Why, surely,” Molly cried, all her shyness suddenly swept away before the frank manner of the city woman. “But you don’t need——”
She broke off. Lightning was already at the cinchas of Pedro’s saddle. In a moment the saddle was on the ground, while the old man passed an appreciative hand over the creature’s back.
“That’s a rare bit o’ hossflesh, ma’am,” he commented shrewdly, as Blanche turned about to him. “He’s the bellows of a forge. Legs? Gee! They’re elegant, an’ as clean as young saplings. That plug can beat a hell of a gait, or I ain’t wise. Look at them pasterns. An’ he’s ribbed, too. Short-backed an’ ribbed to his quarters. You could ride the prairie all day an’ night fer a week, an’ he wouldn’t blow a lucifer out when you’re through.”