Her father and mother knew her disposition, loved it, and feared for it. They knew that there was never a rider so brave, so skilful, so strong, but some outlaw would throw him at last. So at fourteen they sent her east to a boarding-school. In two months she was back with a letter of expulsion, and the boast of having blacked the eyes of the principal’s daughter.
“They couldn’t teach me any more, Mother,” she said. “They admitted it. So here I am.”
Y.D. was plainly perplexed. “It’s about time you was halter-broke,” he commented, “but who’s goin’ to do it?”
“If a girl has learned to read and think, what more can the schools do for her?” she demanded.
And Y.D., never having been to school, could not answer.
The sun was capping the Rockies with molten gold when the rancher and his daughter swung down the foothill slopes to the camp on the South Y.D. Strings of men and horses returning from the upland meadows could be seen from the hillside as they descended.
Y.D.‘s sharp eyes measured the scale of operations.
“They’re hittin’ the high spots,” he said, approvingly. “That boy Transley is a hum-dinger.”
Zen made no reply.
“I say he’s a hum-dinger,” her father repeated.