As he spoke the last words, he followed Dick Willoughby into the open. Dick was standing by his pony.
“You’re superlatively in earnest, aren’t you?” he said as he laughed good-naturedly at the cowboy.
“You bet your life I’m in earnest,” replied Jack. “And if you don’t get busy with that love affair of yours, well, take it from me, you had better look out, for somebody will be picking the peach right from under your very nose. Well, so long, Dick; I’ve changed my mind; I’ll not ride with you. I’ll see to that bit of fence repairing up on the range. And who knows but I may find a sand-bar and a riffle sparkling with yellow gold?” He laughed like a big overgrown boy as he touched the rowel to his pony and galloped away across the valley.
CHAPTER IV—Back to the Soil
JACK ROVER is a great boy,” said Dick Willoughby to Lieutenant Munson as the two rode off at a leisurely pace toward the group of ranch buildings peeping through a clump of trees at the edge of the foothills.
“A type of Western character,” replied Munson, “that in a way is quite new to me. And yet, do you know, I rather like this Western atmosphere.”
“Like it!” exclaimed Dick. “Why, man, it is the atmosphere in which to live, move and have one’s being.”
They both laughed at his enthusiasm.