"I've asked her," was the reply made without rancor. "She said, 'No thanks.'"
"That's one thing in her favor."
"Yeah, I think—Hey! what you tryin' to do, insult me?"
"Insult you, you tarrapin? You wouldn't know it if I did."
"If I wasn't so comfortable, I'd show you something," declared Riley Tyler, sliding farther down on the small of his long back. "But the heat has saved your life, William. Yeah, otherwise you'd be a corpse all bluggy in the middle of Main Street. I'm a wild wolf when I'm riled, you can gamble— Yonder she comes. She didn't stay long."
Billy dug the Tyler shortribs with a hard elbow. "Where's your manners? Go over and untie the lady's team."
"Too far. She'd have 'em untied by the time I got there. Besides, I'm too comfortable. Another thing, I'd have to get up. No, no, I'll stay here."
Hazel Walton stepped into the buckboard, kicked the brake-lever and swung her team like a workman. The tall near mule laid back his long ears and planted both hind feet on the dashboard. Smack! Smack! went the whip. The mule tucked his tail, shook his mean head and tried to jump through his collar. The brake-lever shot forward under the shove of the girl's straightened right leg. The sensible off mule threw his head to the left to ease the hard drag on his mouth as the girl swayed back on the near rein. The near mule, hearing the slither of the locked wheels behind him, and with his windpipe bent like a bow and his chin forced back to his chest, decided that fighting would avail him nothing and quieted at once.
"Regular driver, that girl," Billy said approvingly. "It ain't every woman can drive a pair of those big freight mules. I never knew she was like that."
"Lots of things you dunno," Riley hastened to say. "You didn't even know she was pretty."