Page:The Girl from Hollywood.djvu/17

Rh His eyes had been traveling over Slick’s mount, whose heaving sides were covered with lather. “Baldy’s pretty soft, Slick ; I wouldn’t work him too hard all at once, Get him up to it gradually.”

He turned and rode off with the girl at his side. Slick Allen looked after them for a moment, and then moved his horse off at a slow walk toward the ranch. He was a lean, sinewy man, of medium height. He might have been a cavalryman once. He sat his horse, even at a walk, like one who has sweated and bled under a drill sergeant in the days of his youth.

“How do you like him?” the girl asked of Pennington.

“He’s a good horseman, and good horsemen are getting rare these days,” replied Pennington; “but I don’t know that I’d choose him for a playmate. Don’t you like him?” :

“I’m afraid I don’t. His eyes give me the creeps— they’re like a fish’s.”

“To tell the truth, Grace, I don’t like him,” said Custer. “He’s one of those rare birds—a good horseman who doesn’t love horses. I imagine he won't last long on the Rancho del Ganado; but we’ve got to give him a fair shake—he’s only been with us a few weeks.”

They were picking their way toward the summit of a steep hogback. The man, who led, was seeking care- fully for the safest footing, shamed out of his recent recklessness by the thought of how close the girl had come to a serious accident through his thoughtless- ness. They rode along the hogback until they could look down into a tiny basin where a small bunch of cattle was grazing, and then, turning and dipping over the edge, they dropped slowly toward the animals.

Near the bottom of the slope they came upon a white- faced bull standing beneath the spreading shade of a live oak. He turned his woolly face toward them, his red- rimmed eyes observing them dispassionately for a moment. Then he turned away again and resumed his cud, disdain- ing further notice of them.

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