He was also very curious about her riding Jake, and he seemed inquisitive about whether that was the first time she had ever ridden him.

He was, too, very absent-minded at times, and would go off into vacant-eyed reveries that sealed his ears against her artfully artless chatter.
Some girls would have been discouraged.

Mary V was merely stimulated to further efforts.

Tex did not mention the stealing of any horses at Sinkhole.

He seemed to take it for granted that they were going to work the range to get horses for breaking, and Mary V wondered if perhaps her dad had not thought it best to confine the knowledge of horse-stealing to himself and Bill--at least until he had made an investigation.