“I—­I was drunk,” he confessed, hoping that an honest confession would restrain her from casting him into outer darkness.

“I heard you were,” she admitted.

“I thought it was yore oldest sister’s pony,” he bumbled on, feeling it incumbent upon him to say something.  “They told me something about an old lady.”

“Jane Morgan’s the only other sister I have.  Who told you this wild tale?”

“Them,” was his vague reply.  He was not the man to give away the jokers of Farewell.  Old lady, indeed!  Miss Blythe to the contrary notwithstanding this girl was not within sight of middle-age.  “Yeah,” he went on, “they shore fooled me.  Told me I’d taken an old maid’s hoss, and—­”

“Oh, as far as that goes,” said the girl, her long eyelashes demurely drooping, “they told you the truth.  I’m an old maid.”

“You?  Shucks!” Hugely contemptuous.

“Oh, but I am,” she insisted, raising her eyes and tilting sidewise her charming head.  “I’m not married.”

“Thank—­” he began, impulsively, but choked on the second word and gulped hard.  “I mean,” he resumed, hastily, “I don’t understand why I never saw you before.  I was here once, but you weren’t around.”

“When were you here?...  Why, that was two years ago.  I was only a kid then—­all legs like a calf.  No wonder you didn’t notice me.”

She laughed at him frankly, with a bewildering flash of white teeth.

“I shore must ‘a’ been blind,” he said, truthfully.  “They ain’t any two ways about that.”

Under his admiring gaze a slow blush overspread her smooth cheeks.  She laughed again—­uncertainly, and burst into swift speech.  “My manners!  What have I been thinking of?  Mr. Dawson, please sit down, do.  I know you must be tired after your long ride.  Take that chair under the mirror.  It’s the strongest.  You can tip it back against the wall if you like.  I’ll get you a cup of coffee.  I know you’re thirsty.  I’m sorry Mother and Father aren’t home, but Mother drove over to the Bar S on business and I don’t know where Father went!”

“I ain’t fit to stay,” hesitated Racey, rasping the back of his hand across his stubbly chin.

“Nonsense.  You sit right down while I grind the coffee.  I’ll have you a potful in no time.  I make pretty good coffee if I do say it myself.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

“But my sister Jane makes better.  You’ll get some of hers at dinner.”

“Dinner?” He stared blankly.

“Of course, dinner.  When Mother and Father are away I always go down there for my meals.  It’s only a quarter-mile down stream.  Shorter if you climb that ridge.  But it’s so stony I generally go along the creek bank where I can gallop....  What?  Why, of course you’re going with me.  Jane would never forgive me if I didn’t bring you.  And what would Chuck say if you came this far and then didn’t go on down to his house?  Don’t you suppose he enjoys seeing his old friends?  It was only last week I heard him wonder to Father if you were ever coming back to this country.  How did you like it up at the Bend?”