"You think it's as bad as that?" he growled, glaring at her.
"I swear it is!"
He considered another moment. Then: "You'll have to excuse me, Miss
Jordan. But I'm so plumb tired out I can't hold up my end of this talk
no longer!"
So saying, he dropped his head on both his doubled fists, and she lost
sight of his face. It had come so inconceivably easily, this triumph,
that she was too dazed to move, for a moment. Then she turned and
fairly raced for the corral. It had all been the result of the first
smile with which she went to McGuire, she felt. And as she saddled her
bay in a shed a moment later she was blessing the power of laughter.
It had given her the horse. It had let her pass through the bars. It
placed her on the open road where she fled away at a swift gallop,
only looking back, as she reached the top of the first hill, to see
McGuire still seated on the stump, but now his head was canted far to
one side, and she had no doubt that he must be asleep in very fact.
Then the hill rose behind her, shutting out the ranch, and she
turned to settle to her work. Never in her life--and she had ridden
cross-country on blood horses in the East--had she ridden as she rode
on this day! She was striking on a straight line over hill and dale,
through the midst of barbed wire.
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