“If you are going to Saguache to see my uncle, I fear you will be disappointed as he left this morning for an absence of several days.”
“That does not matter as I have other business anyway. Most any time will do, as I am in town quite often. We would better not drive so fast. Your horse is in a foam.”
Carson was fast becoming interested in the girl at his side. Her calm poise, after the exciting adventures with the mountain lions, surprised him. Other women would have been hysterical, but here by his side sat a girl not yet out of her teens, as calm and collected as a veteran soldier after the battle. And Amos, the man he was going to see and intended to kill if he proved to be the villain he suspected him to be, was her uncle.
The white billows rose rank on rank on the distant mountains, while the snow of the valley shrunk visibly away, leaving the grey rocks naked and protuberant.
The newly-made acquaintances chatted gaily as the horse jogged along.
“I was thinking of your remark awhile ago,” said Carson, “that you would go to Del Norte tomorrow if you had an escort, and as I have some time to idle away it would give me pleasure to drive you over.”
“It would give me equal pleasure to have you do so,” she replied with admirable frankness, “that is, if you are going there anyway.”
“I may need to purchase some new implements with which to work the Aberdeen––I mean the Jug Handle mine,” he explained. “I have heard of a new drill they are working over there and it may be just the thing for the formation we are now in.”
“I see,” said the girl, as a mischievous smile flitted about her lips, “and I am very glad you will accompany me. I shall make you acquainted with some of my very dear friends.”