Her fresh face, its cheeks whipped pink under their tan by the winds, its blue eyes sparkling, its wet red lips parted over the white teeth, hurt him with a downright pain.
“Oh, Tharon,” he said with an accent that was all-revealing, “Oh, Tharon, dear!”
The girl scrambled to her feet and looked at him in surprise.
“Billy,” she said sharply, “what’s th’ matter with you? Are you sick?”
“Yes,” said the boy with conviction, “I am. Let’s go home.”
“Sick, how?” she pressed, with the born tyranny of the loving woman, “have you got that pain in your stomach again?”
Billy laughed in spite of himself, and the romantic ache was shattered. 155
“For the love of Pete!” he complained, “don’t you ever forget that? You know I’ve never et an ounce of Anita’s puddin’s since. No, I think,” he finished judiciously as he mounted Golden, “that I’ve caught somethin’, Tharon––caught somethin’ from that feller of th’ red-beet badge. Leastways I’ve felt it ever sence I left th’ clearin’.”
And as they swung away from the spring toward the Holding, far ahead under its cottonwoods, he let out the young horse for another stretch.
“Bet Golden can beat El Rey up home,” he said over his shoulder.