She abandoned that avenue of approach, and came to a more personal one—came to it with a face of marble except for the live eyes.
“But for you I would have drowned,” she said, and shuddered.
“Maybe so; maybe not.”
“Yes. I couldn’t have got out alone,” she insisted. “Of course I can’t thank you. There’s no use trying. But I’ll never forget—never as long as I live.”
About her there was a proud, delicate beauty that charmed him. She was at once so slender and so vital. Her face was like a fine, exquisitely cut cameo.
“All right,” he agreed cheerfully. “Honours are easy then, Miss Trovillion. I lifted you out and you pulled me out.”
“Oh, you can say that! As if I did anything that counted.” The fount of her feelings had been touched, and she was still tremulous. It was impossible for her to dismiss this adventure as casually as he seemed ready to do. After all, it had been the most tremendous hazard of her young, well-sheltered life.
When he had made sure the trap was fit for the road, McCoy turned to his companion and helped her in. She drove slowly. The cattleman rode beside her. He was going out of his way, but he found for himself a sufficient excuse. She was a slim slip of a girl who had lived her nineteen or twenty years in cities far from the primitive dangers of the wild. Probably she was unstrung from her experience and might collapse. Anyhow, he was not going to take the chance of it.