Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/169

 youth garbed like a wilderness hunter—a boy, more beautiful than any boy, whose eyes sought his and challenged them.

"How do I look?" she asked him impudently, one hand on her hip, the other twirling an imaginary moustache.

He stood dumb with amazement. For the life of him he could find no word. It was Mr. Francis O'Sullivan who broke the silence.

"Mam'selle," he chirped, sweeping off his hat and bending low before her, "sure, you have struck him speechless, but I bid you find your answer in the pitiful face of him. Mam'selle, I do assure you with my hand upon my heart that you are the most heavenly thing these eyes have seen at all, at all."

"I thank you, sir, for your handsome speech," said Jolie with a curtsey, "and no thanks to you, Mr. Tie-Tongue, at all, at all. And because he likes not my looks and is frowning at me like an ogre, I choose for my riding companion Mr. Almayne."

So, with Jolie riding by Almayne's side—riding astride after the manner of a man—the pack train resumed its journey. There was a purpose underneath her whim. There were questions that she wished to ask and that only Almayne could answer. He answered grudgingly at first, with an underlying hostility concealed yet plainly evident; but exerting, yet not overplaying, her charm, she got what she wanted out of him, and much more besides, so that she rode with him for an hour or longer. This done, she dared