“Are you the lady that sashaid off with Ned Bannister?” he asked presently, after he had had time to smother successively some of his fear, wonder and delight at their smooth, swift progress.
“Yes. Why?”
“The boys allow you hadn’t oughter have done it.” Then, to place the responsibility properly on shoulders broader than his own, he added: “That’s what Judd says.”
“And who is Judd?”
“Judd, he’s the foreman of the Lazy D.”
Below them appeared the corrals and houses of a ranch nestling in a little valley flanked by hills.
“This yere’s the Lazy D,” announced the youth, with pride, and in the spirit of friendliness suggested a caution. “Judd, he’s some peppery. You wanter smooth him down some, seeing as he’s riled up to-day.”
A flicker of steel came into the blue eyes. “Indeed! Well, here we are.”
“If it ain’t Reddy, and the lady with the flying machine,” murmured a freckled youth named McWilliams, emerging from the bunkhouse with a pan of water which had been used to bathe the wound of one of the punctured combatants.
“What’s that?” snapped a voice from within; and immediately its owner appeared in the doorway and bored with narrowed black eyes the young woman in the machine.