“Well, then. Anybody can see you’re as weak as a kitten. Do as I say.”
“Why can’t we both ride?”
“We can as soon as we get across the pass. Until then I’ll walk.” 28
Erect as a willow sapling, she took the hills with an elastic ease that showed her deep-bosomed in spite of her slenderness. The short corduroy riding skirt and high-laced boots were made for use, not grace, but the man in the saddle found even in her manner of walking the charm of her direct, young courage. Free of limb, as yet unconscious of sex, she had the look of a splendid boy. The descending sun was in her sparkling hair, on the lank, undulating grace of her changing lines.
Active as a cat though it was, the cowpony found the steep pass with its loose rubble hard going. Melissy took the climb much easier. In the way she sped through the mesquit, evading the clutch of the cholla by supple dips to right and left, there was a kind of pantherine litheness.
At the summit she waited for the horse to clamber up the shale after her.
“Get down in your collar, you Buckskin,” she urged, and when the pony was again beside her petted the animal with little love pats on the nose.
Carelessly she flung at Diller a question. “From what part of the East did you say?”
He was on the spot promptly this time. “From Keokuk.”
“Keokuk, Indiana?”