For an instant they were level with Dick's grave questioning.
Suddenly, sweetly, she blushed.
"Oh-h!" she faltered.
Then the blush turned to a scarlet fire. She whirled past him,
and like a white gleam was gone.
Dick became conscious of the quickened beating of his heart. He
experienced a singular exhilaration. That moment had been the
one for which he had been ripe, the event upon which strange
circumstances had been rushing him.
With a couple of strides he turned the corner. Laddy and Lash
were there talking to a man of burly form. Seen by day, both
cowboys were gray-haired, red-skinned, and weather-beaten, with
lean, sharp features, and gray eyes so much alike that they might
have been brothers.
"Hello, there's the young fellow," spoke up the burly man. "Mr.
Gale, I'm glad to meet you. My name's Belding."
His greeting was as warm as his handclasp was long and hard.
Gale saw a heavy man of medium height. His head was large
and covered with grizzled locks. He wore a short-cropped mustache
and chin beard. His skin was brown, and his dark eyes beamed with
a genial light.
The cowboys were as cordial as if Dick had been their friend for years.
"Young man, did you run into anything as you came out?" asked Belding,
with twinkling eyes.
"Why, yes, I met something white and swift flying by," replied Dick.
"Did she see you?" asked Laddy.
"I think so; but she didn't wait for me to introduce myself."
"That was Nell Burton, my girl--step-daughter, I should say," said
Belding.
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