Mr. Bransford"s eye estimated the distance covered during the recent snake episode, and then gave to Miss Hoffman a look of profound respect.
His shoulders humped up slightly; his head bowed to the stroke: he stood upon one foot and traced the Rainbow brand in the dust with the other.
"I told you all along I wasn"t hurt," he said aggrieved. "Didn"t I, now?"
"Are you lame?" she repeated severely, ignoring his truthful saying.
""Not--very."" The quotation marks were clearly audible.
"Are you lame at all?"
"No, ma"am--not what you might call really lame. Uh--no, ma"am."
"And you deceived me like that!" Indignation checked her. "Oh, I am so disappointed in you! That was a fine, manly thing for you to do!"
"It was such a lovely time," observed the culprit doggedly. "And such a chance might never happen again. And it isn"t my fault I wasn"t hurt, you know. I"m sure I wish I was."
She gave him an icy glare.
"Now see what you"ve done! Your men haven"t come and you won"t stay with Mr. Lake. How are you going to get home? Oh, I forgot--you can walk, as you should have done at first."
The guilty wretch wilted yet further. He shuffled his feet; he writhed; he positively squirmed. He ventured a timid upward glance. It seemed to give him courage. Prompted, doubtless, by the same feeling which drives one to dive headlong into dreaded cold water, he said, in a burst of candor:
"Well, you see, ma"am, that little horse now--he really ain"t got far.
He got tangled up over there a ways----"
The girl wheeled and shot a swift, startled glance at the little eohippus on the hillside, who had long since given over his futile struggles and was now nibbling gra.s.s with becoming resignation. She turned back to Bransford. Slowly, scathingly, she looked him over from head to foot and slowly back again. Her expression ran the gamut--wonder, anger, scorn, withering contempt.
"I think I hate you!" she flamed at him.
Amazement triumphed over the other emotions then--a real amazement: the detected impostor had resumed his former debonair bearing and met her scornful eye with a slow and provoking smile.
"Oh, no, you don"t," he said rea.s.suringly. "On the contrary, you don"t hate me at all!"
"I"m going home, anyhow," she retorted bitterly. "You may draw your own conclusions."
Still, she did not go, which possibly had a confusing effect upon his inferences.
"Just one minute, ma"am, if you please. How did you know so pat where the little black horse was? _I_ didn"t tell you."
Little waves of scarlet followed each other to her burning face.
"I"m not going to stay another moment. You"re detestable! And it"s nearly sundown."
"Oh, you needn"t hurry. It"s not far."
She followed his gesture. To her intense mortification she saw the blue smoke of her home campfire flaunting up from a gully not half a mile away. It was her turn to droop now. She drooped.
There was a painful silence. Then, in a far-off, hard, judicial tone:
"How long, ma"am, if I may ask, have you known that the little black horse was tangled up?"
Miss Ellinor"s eyes shifted wildly. She broke a twig from a mahogany bush and examined the swelling buds with minutest care.
"Well?" said her ruthless inquisitor sternly.
"Since--since I went for your hat," she confessed in a half whisper.
"To deceive me so!" Pain, grief, surprise, reproach, were in his words.
"Have you anything to say?" he added sadly.
A slender shoe peeped out beneath her denim skirt and tapped on a buried boulder. Ellinor regarded the toetip with interest and curiosity. Then, half-audibly:
"We were having such a good time.... And it might never happen again!"
He captured both her hands. She drew back a little--ever so little; she trembled slightly, but her eyes met his frankly and bravely.
"No, no!... Not now.... Go, now, Mr. Bransford. Go at once. We will have a pleasant day to remember."
"Until the next pleasant day," said resolute Bransford, openly exultant.
"But see here, now--I can"t go to Lake"s camp or to Lake"s ball"--here Miss Ellinor pouted distinctly--"or anything that is Lake"s. After your masked ball, then what?"
"New York; but it"s only so far--on the map." She held her hands apart very slightly to indicate the distance. "On a little map, that is."
"I"ll drop in Sat.u.r.days," said Jeff.
"Do! I want to hear you sing the rest about the little eohippus."
"If you"ll sing about Sandy!" suggested Jeff.
"Why not? Good-by now--I must go."
"And you won"t sing about Sandy to any one else?"
The girl considered doubtfully.
"Why--I don"t know--I"ve known you for a very little while, if you please." She gathered up her belongings. "But we"re friends?"
"_No! No!_" said Jeff vehemently. "You won"t sing it to any one else--Ellinor?"
She drew a line in the dust.
"If you won"t cross that line," she said, "I"ll tell you."
Mr. Bransford grasped a sapling with a firm clutch and shook it to try its strength.
"A bird in the bush is the n.o.blest work of G.o.d," he announced. "I"ll take a chance."
Her eyes were shining.