"To see what I can find out about where he is."

"I've told you all you can find out by going to the house," she returned
deprecatingly. He looked at her as if undecided. "When you ask to go
riding with me and I get the horses--I come first, don't I?" she asked
cavalierly; and before he could help her she was back again in the saddle.

He hesitated no longer: "You come first any time," he said, "and
anywhere," he added, swinging up on his own pony.

She looked sidewise at him as they trotted up the street: "You don't mind
rather rough riding?"

"Anything the ponies can stand," was all he said.

Kate had given him her dun pony. Spirit-free all the time the trim beast
either through instinct knew his rider or meant to cast off care in a
long fling. He took the stage the moment his rider touched the saddle.
Kate rode Dick, her lighter but faster gray pony. He danced attendance
for a time, but the dun kept the spotlight and gave Kate a chance to
regard the man just from Medicine Bend critically. She had meant to put
him on exhibition--perhaps cherished a hope he might ride only
indifferently well--yet in a country where everybody rode, this was much
to hope for. At all events, the result, with an added surprise, was a
disappointment.

If there be a latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if
there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in
the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before
Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his
careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted
riotously, the rider's head, rising like a monitor straight from his
slender neck, invited his horse to show its paces.

"You take the trail," said Kate's guest tersely, as they swung out on the
desert.

"No," she returned, "you."

"We'll take it together," was his reply.

But despite her disclaiming, Kate did the guiding and her object was to
get a good way from town. Her companion's frequently repeated effort was
to slow down for a talk; hers was to tantalize him by speeding away from
one. But she couldn't speed all of the time, and he eyed either her
riding, or her habit, pretty closely for a good while without comment.
Then a chance offered itself and he put a question: "Where did you learn
to ride?"

"All mountain girls ride, don't they?" she suggested.

"You're not a mountain girl."

"It was a mountain girl that