But the young creatures in the west door cared naught for her grumbling.
“Who can it be, to come so, Señorita?” wondered Paula, her brown cheek beside her mistress, “is he not handsome!”
“For mercy sake, Paula,” chided Tharon laughing, “I believe you’d look for beauty in th’ ol’ Nick himself if he rode up. But I’ve seen this man before.”
“Where? When?”
“In town that day I met Courtrey an’ Service. I remember seen’ him come into line as I backed out––he was standin’ between th’ racks an’ th’ porch, somewhere.” And she narrowed her eyes and studied the rider as he came jogging up across the range.
“H’m,” she said presently, “he does ride 87 funny. I bet he ain’t rode range much in his life. Stiff as a ramrod, an’ no mistake.”
Then with an unconscious grace and poise that set well upon her as the mistress of Last’s, Tharon moved into the open door and waited.
As the stranger came closer both girls subjected him to a frank and careful scrutiny that in any other place than Lost Valley would have been rudeness itself.
Here it catalogued the stranger, set the style of his welcome.
It left him stripped of surprise, outwardly, before he was within speaking distance.