"How do you know? I never said so!"
"You laughed at him to dad one day."
"Did I?" said The Duke, gravely. "Then I hasten to assure, you that I
have changed my mind. He is a good, brave man."
"He falls off his horse," she said, with contempt.
"I rather think he sticks on now," replied The Duke, repressing a smile.
"Besides," she went on, "he's just a kid; Bill said so."
"Well, he might be more ancient," acknowledged The Duke, "but in that he
is steadily improving."
"Anyway," with an air of finality, "he is not to come here."
But he did come, and under her own escort, one threatening August
evening.
"I found him in the creek," she announced, with defiant shamefacedness,
marching in The Pilot half drowned.
"I think I could have crossed," he said, apologetically, "for Louis was
getting on his feet again."
"No, you wouldn't," she protested. "You would have been down into the
canyon by now, and you ought to be thankful."
"So I am," he hastened to say, "very! But," he added, unwilling to give
up his contention, "I have crossed the Swan before."
"Not when it was in flood."
"Yes, when it was in flood, higher than now."
"Not where the banks are rocky."
"No-o!" he hesitated.
"There, then, you WOULD have been drowned but for my lariat!" she cried,
triumphantly.
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