They were always mysterious to me, as if holding a secret I needed to know.
It was a strange ride because in the back of my head worked a haunting consciousness of the deadly nature of my business there on the frontier, a business in such contrast with this dreaming and dallying, this longing for what surely was futile.
Any moment I might be stripped of my disguise.

Any moment I might have to be the Ranger.
Sally kept the lead across the wide plain, and mounted to the top of a ridge, where tired out, and satisfied with her victory, she awaited me.
I was in no hurry to reach the summit of the long, slow-sloping ridge, and I let my horse walk.
Just how would Sally Langdon meet me now, after my regretted exhibition before her cousin?
There was no use to conjecture, but I was not hopeful.
When I got there to find her in her sweetest mood, with some little difference never before noted--a touch of shyness--I concealed my surprise.
"Russ, I gave you a run that time," she said.

"Ten miles and you never caught me!" "But look at the start you had.

I've had my troubles beating you with an even break." Sally was susceptible to flattery in regard to her riding, a fact that I made subtle use of.
"But in a long race I was afraid you'd beat me.

Russ, I've learned to ride out here.