Bo had blushed beautifully.
“Nell, wasn't he glorious!” she burst out, with eyes shining.
“I'd hardly call him that, but he was—nice,” replied Helen, much relieved that Bo had apparently not taken offense at her.
It appeared plain that Bo resisted a frantic desire to look out of the window and to wave her hand. But she only peeped out, manifestly to her disappointment.
“Do you think he—he'll come to Uncle Al's?” asked Bo.
“Child, he was only in fun.”
“Nell, I'll bet you he comes. Oh, it'd be great! I'm going to love cowboys. They don't look like that Harve Riggs who ran after you so.”
Helen sighed, partly because of the reminder of her odious suitor, and partly because Bo's future already called mysteriously to the child. Helen had to be at once a mother and a protector to a girl of intense and wilful spirit.
One of the trainmen directed the girls' attention to a green, sloping mountain rising to a bold, blunt bluff of bare rock; and, calling it Starvation Peak, he told a story of how Indians had once driven Spaniards up there and starved them. Bo was intensely interested, and thereafter she watched more keenly than ever, and always had a question for a passing trainman. The adobe houses of the Mexicans pleased her, and, then the train got out into Indian country, where pueblos appeared near the track and Indians with their bright colors and shaggy wild mustangs—then she was enraptured.
“But these Indians are peaceful!” she exclaimed once, regretfully.