"We-el--don't skip!" cried Billy Louise, backing away from him with more blushes than any girl could hope to hide behind a coat of tan. "There's lots of chapters before the last. And you've got to read them straight through and--no fair skipping!"
"Wilhemina-mine!" Ward repeated the newly invented appellation, which seemed to approach satisfactorily close to the line of forbidden endearments.
"Oh, for pity's sake! I never knew you to act so." Billy Louise scowled unconvincingly at him from a safe distance.
"I never was kissed before," blurted Ward foolhardily, kicking Rattler closer.
"Well, if that's what ails you, I'll see it doesn't happen again," retorted Billy Louise squelchingly, and Ward's self-assurance was not great enough to lift him over the barrier of that rebuff.
They came upon Charlie Fox sitting on his horse beside the crude mail-box, reading avidly a letter of many crisp, close-written pages. Billy Louise flashed Ward an I-told-you-so glance.
"Why, how do you do?" Charlie came out of cloudland with a start and turned to them cordially, while he hastily folded the letter. "Going down into the Cove? That's good. I was just up after the mail. How are things up your way, Warren?"
"Fine as silk." Ward's eyes swung briefly toward what he considered the chief bit of fineness.
"That's good. Trail's a little narrow for three, isn't it? I'll ride ahead and open the gate."
"They've got a new gate down here," said Billy Louise trivially. "I forgot that important bit of news."
"Well, it is important--to us Covers," smiled Charlie, glancing back at them. "No more bars to be left down accidentally. This gate shuts itself, in case someone forgets."
"And you haven't lost any more cattle, have you?" The question was a statement, after Billy Louise's habit.
"Not out of the Cove, at any rate. I--can't speak so positively as to the outside stock--of course."
"You've missed some?" Billy Louise never permitted a tone to slip past her without tagging it immediately with plain English. Charlie's tone had said something to which his words made no reference.
"I don't like to say that, Miss Louise. Very likely they have stray--drifted, I mean--back toward their home ranch. Peter and I can't keep cases very closely, of course."
Billy Louise shifted uneasily in the saddle and pulled her eyebrows together. "If you think you've lost some cattle, for heaven's sake why don't you say so!" (Ward smiled to himself at her tone.) "If there's anything I hate, it's hinting and never coming right out with anything. Have you lost any?"
Charlie turned with a hand on the cantle and faced her with polite reproach. "Peter says we have," he admitted, with very evident reluctance. "I hardly think so myself. I'd have to count them. I know, of course, how many we've bought in the last year."