“Are you?”
“I certainly am.”
He swung down, gave Captain a drink at the edge of the spring farthest from El Rey, dropped the rein when he had finished, and swung around to face the girl. He took off his wide hat and wiped his forehead with a square of linen finer than anything of its kind she had ever seen.
Then he stood for a moment looking straight into her eyes with his smiling dark ones. It seemed to Tharon that this man was always smiling.
“This is your spring, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes. The Silver Hollow. Th’ Gold Pool is farther south toward th’ Black Coulee. There was another one, fine as this, perhaps a better one, up on th’ Cup Rim Range, but Courtrey blew her up, damn him! She was called th’ Crystal.” Kenset caught his breath, mentally, all but physically, and put up a hand to cover his lips.
This was another type of woman from any he had ever met, in truth.
The oath, rolling roundly over her full red lips, was as unconscious as the long breath that lifted her breast at the memory of that outrage.
“We replaced her with a well––an’ it’s a corker. 172 Mebby better than th’ old Crystal, though she was a lovely thing. As clear as––as ice that’s frozen hard without a ripple of white. You know that kind?”
“Yes,” said Kenset gravely.