Perhaps he even used some of the cowboy words that he had heard Curly and Bob employ when Little Billy was not around After the noise of his frantic efforts, the silence was more oppressive than ever.

The Cross-Triangle ranch house was, somewhere, endless miles away.
Then a faint sound in the narrow valley below him caught his ear.
Turning quickly, he looked back the way he had come.

Was he dreaming, or was it all just a part of the magic of that wonderful land?
A young woman was riding toward him--coming at an easy swinging lope--and, following, at the end of a riata, was the cheerfully wise and philosophic Snip.
Patches' first thought--when he had sufficiently recovered I from his amazement to think at all--was that the woman rode as he had never seen a woman ride before.

Dressed in the divided skirt of corduroy, the loose, soft, gray shirt, gauntleted gloves, mannish felt hat, and boots, usual to Arizona horsewomen, she seemed as much at ease in the saddle as any cowboy in the land; and, indeed, she was.
As she came up the slope, the man in the shade of the cedar saw that she was young.

Her lithe, beautifully developed body yielded to the movement of the spirited horse she rode with the unspoiled grace of health and youth.