Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/36

 "Oh, I couldn't help it. David looked so miserable being dragged along at the end of a pole."

"The cowards!" he cried. "Don't get a chair, ma'am. I like the steps better. Did you call him David?" he asked, with a twinkle of amusement in his kind gray eyes, as he seated himself on the low step, with his long legs trailing off over the walk.

"Well, yes. I didn't know what else to call him, and as he'd been delivered out of the hands of the Philistines"

"That's a good one!" cried the ranchman. "Come here, David. You've got a name now as well as a locket. Do you hear that?"

David had established himself between his master and his rescuer, and looked from one to the other with evident satisfaction. They were soon engaged in an amicable conversation, quite unconscious of the picture they were forming. The tall ranchman, clad in full cowboy paraphernalia, his extended legs encased in leathern "shaps" decorated with long fringes, his belt of rattlesnake-skin, his loose shirt showing a triangle of bronzed throat, in his hand the broad sombrero clasped about with a silver band.