A coyote crossed in front of him, stopped long enough to get a good look, and went on. Jimmy did not realize that it was a wild animal. A flock of blue quail whirred up in front of the horse and went careening down across a brushy draw. Something told him that these were game birds, and he wondered whether they were prairie chickens. He had heard of them.
He wasted several cigaret papers, trying to master the art of rolling a cigaret on a moving horse. He did not in the least resemble the James Eaton Legg, who had slid off his high stool in Mellon & Company’s office a short time before. His face was just as thin, but there was none of the office pallor. He was, as Eskimo declared, “burnt to a darned cinder.”
His hands were red, his lower lip cracked. And he had quit wearing glasses. It seemed to him that they were too indelibly stamped with his former occupation. He squinted badly in the bright sun, but his vision was all right. His ornate cowboy garb was no longer ornate, and to the casual eye he would have appeared about the same as the rest of the range riders.
And, to his great delight, he was picking up a smattering of range lingo, a few well-chosen cuss words, and he could draw his six-shooter out of the holster without shooting it accidentally. He had realized later how close he had been to killing two men, and had promised himself that when he went to town with the boys he would leave his gun at the ranch.
He rode into a well defined cattle-trail and managed to light his cigaret. Since leaving the ranch he had ridden at a walk, but now he spurred his horse into a gallop. It gave him a thrill to ride alone; to know that critical eyes were not watching his riding ability. The mare was willing to run, but he curbed her slightly. He tried to remember a song that Eskimo sang, but the words escaped him.
In his reckless abandon he stood up in his stirrups, as he had seen Johnny Grant do many times, whipped off his sombrero and slapped the mare across the rump.
The next thing he realized was that the mare’s ears had disappeared with a terrible lurch, and that he was again flying through space. He struck sitting down in the sand, and skidded along for several feet before stopping. He was badly jarred, but unhurt. His sombrero sailed into the brush, and the mare kept right on going for a hundred feet or so, where she whirled around, cut across a little ridge and went back toward the AK.
“That was an awful fool thing to do.”
The voice seemed to come from nowhere. Jimmy Legg stretched his neck and looked around. Standing in the trail, just a few feet beyond him was a girl—Marion Taylor. Jimmy Legg shut one eye and considered her gravely. He was sure he was mistaken, and wondered whether this could be a mirage. Oyster had told him of many mirages in that country, but he had never mentioned one of a pretty girl, who could talk.
“What was a fool thing?” asked Jimmy.