"That feller's shaping well," he said, his thoughts for the moment evidently upon the practical side of her comfort.
The girl nodded. That look of rapturous joy had left her, and she too became practical.
"I think so--when Mrs. Ransford leaves him alone," she said, with a little laugh. "She declares it is always necessary to harass a 'hired' man from daylight to dark. If I were he I'd get out into the pastures, or hay sloughs, or forest, or somewhere, and stay there till she'd gone to bed. Really, Buck, she's a terrible woman."
In the growing weeks of companionship Joan had learned to use this man's name as familiarly as though she had known him all her life. It would have seemed absurd to call him anything but Buck now. Besides, she liked doing so. The name fitted him. "Buck;" it suggested to her--spirit, independence, courage, everything that was manly; and she had long ago decided that he was all these things--and more.
Buck laughed in his quiet fashion. He rarely laughed loudly. Joan thought it sounded more like a deep-throated gurgle.
"She sure is," he declared heartily.
"Of course," Joan smiled. "You have crossed swords with her."
The man shook his head.
"Not me," he said. "She did the battlin'. Guess I sat tight. You see, words ain't as easy to a man, as to--some women."
Joan enjoyed the tact of his remark. She leant forward and smoothed the silky neck of the Padre's horse, and Buck's admiring eyes took in the perfect lines of her well-cut habit. He had never seen anything like it before, and failed to understand the excellence of its tailoring, but he knew that everything about this girl was wonderfully beautiful, and he would have liked to have been able to tell her so.
As he watched her he could not help thinking of the moment when he had held her in his arms. It was a thought almost always with him, a thought which never failed to stir his pulses and set them racing.
"But you see I can't do without her," the girl went on as she sat up in her saddle again. "She's a good worker, herself. She's taught me a good deal already. Oh, yes," she smiled at his look of incredulity, "I've begun my lessons. I am learning all I can, preparing for the bigger lessons of this--this"--she gave a comprehensive glance at the hills--"wonderful world."
Buck nodded. But he rode on in silence, his face for the moment clouded with deep thought. He was thinking of that night in Beasley's store. He was thinking of what might have happened there if those women had carried out their purpose. He was wondering what the lessons might be that this girl might yet find herself confronted with. The matter troubled him. And Joan's surreptitious glance into his face warned her that the cloud had obscured his sun.