Essential Western Novels - Volume 4. Max Brand

flushed, but he held out his hand. "I understand," he said, "but in fairness to me you should let me do something—anything you ask."

      "I'll be askin' something later, I hope," replied Mason, his eyes softening.

      White smiled. "I hope so, too, my boy," he said; "and now go on to bed."

      Before he turned in, Buck Mason cut a new notch on each of his father's forty-fours.

      He was up early the next morning, for it does not take youth long to recuperate; and, furthermore, he was ravenously hungry. As he stepped out onto the veranda in the cool, fresh air of the morning, he saw a girl walking toward the river, a girl that he might not have recognized except for the blond head; for the lithe body was clothed in smart sport togs, which reminded him of illustrations he had seen in Vogue; but too often had he watched the sunlight playing in that blond hair to fail to recognize it, whatever the apparel of its owner. So he, too, hastened down toward the river.

      Cottonwoods grow along the river, hiding much of the view from the veranda; but they do not hide everything; and when, a few minutes later, Dora Crowell stepped out of the TF Ranch house to fill her lungs with the early morning air, she caught a glimpse of a figure standing among the cottonwoods by the river; and when she looked more closely and saw that the one figure was really two, she smiled and turned her eyes in another direction.