"Look! Look!" cried Bo, in thrilling voice. "Cowboys! Oh, Nell, look!"Helen, laughing, looked first at her sister, and thought how most of all she was good to look at. Bo was little, instinct with pulsating life, and she had chestnut hair and dark-blue eyes. These eyes were flashing, roguish, and they drew like magnets.
Outside on the rude station platform were railroad men, Mexicans, and a group of lounging cowboys. Long, lean, bow-legged fellows they were, with young, frank faces and intent eyes. One of them seemed particularly attractive with his superb build, his red-bronze face and bright-red scarf, his swinging gun, and the huge, long, curved spurs.
Evidently he caught Bo's admiring gaze, for, with a word to his companions, he sauntered toward the window where the girls sat. His gait was singular, almost awkward, as if he was not accustomed to walking. The long spurs jingled musically. He removed his sombrero and stood at ease, frank, cool, smiling. Helen liked him on sight, and, looking to see what effect he had upon Bo, she found that young lady staring, frightened stiff.
"Good mawnin'," drawled the cowboy, with slow, good-humored smile. "Now where might you-all be travelin'?"The sound of his voice, the clean-cut and droll geniality;seemed new and delightful to Helen.
"We go to Magdalena -- then take stage for the White Mountains," replied Helen.
The cowboy's still, intent eyes showed surprise.
"Apache country, miss," he said. "I reckon I'm sorry. Thet's shore no place for you-all . . . Beggin' your pawdin -- you ain't Mormons?""No. We're nieces of Al Auchincloss," rejoined Helen.
"Wal, you don't say! I've been down Magdalena way an' heerd of Al. . . . Reckon you're goin' a-visitin'?""It's to be home for us."
"Shore thet's fine. The West needs girls. . . . Yes, I've heerd of Al. An old Arizona cattle-man in a sheep country!
Thet's bad. . . . Now I'm wonderin' -- if I'd drift down there an' ask him for a job ridin' for him -- would I get it?"His lazy smile was infectious and his meaning was as clear as crystal water. The gaze he bent upon Bo somehow pleased Helen. The last year or two, since Bo had grown prettier all the time, she had been a magnet for admiring glances. This one of the cowboy's inspired respect and liking, as well as amusement. It certainly was not lost upon Bo.
"My uncle once said in a letter that he never had enough men to run his ranch," replied Helen, smiling.
"Shore I'll go. I reckon I'd jest naturally drift that way -- now."He seemed so laconic, so easy, so nice, that he could not have been taken seriously, yet Helen's quick perceptions registered a daring, a something that was both sudden and inevitable in him. His last word was as clear as the soft look he fixed upon Bo.
Helen had a mischievous trait, which, subdue it as she would, occasionally cropped out; and Bo, who once in her wilful life had been rendered speechless, offered such a temptation.
"Maybe my little sister will put in a good word for you --to Uncle Al," said Helen. Just then the train jerked, and started slowly. The cowboy took two long strides beside the car, his heated boyish face almost on a level with the window, his eyes, now shy and a little wistful, yet bold, too, fixed upon Bo.
"Good-by -- Sweetheart!" he called.
He halted -- was lost to view.
"Well!" ejaculated Helen, contritely, half sorry, half amused. "What a sudden young gentleman!"Bo had blushed beautifully.
"Nell, wasn't he glorious!" she burst out, with eyes shining.
"I'd hardly call him that, but he was-nice," replied Helen, much relieved that Bo had apparently not taken offense at her.
It appeared plain that Bo resisted a frantic desire to look out of the window and to wave her hand. But she only peeped out, manifestly to her disappointment.
"Do you think he -- he'll come to Uncle Al's?" asked Bo.
"Child, he was only in fun."
"Nell, I'll bet you he comes. Oh, it'd be great! I'm going to love cowboys. They don't look like that Harve Riggs who ran after you so."Helen sighed, partly because of the reminder of her odious suitor, and partly because Bo's future already called mysteriously to the child. Helen had to be at once a mother and a protector to a girl of intense and wilful spirit.
One of the trainmen directed the girls' attention to a green, sloping mountain rising to a bold, blunt bluff of bare rock; and, calling it Starvation Peak, be told a story of how Indians had once driven Spaniards up there and starved them. Bo was intensely interested, and thereafter she watched more keenly than ever, and always had a question for a passing trainman. The adobe houses of the Mexicans pleased her, and, then the train got out into Indian country, where pueblos appeared near the track and Indians with their bright colors and shaggy wild mustangs -- then she was enraptured.
"But these Indians are peaceful!" she exclaimed once, regretfully.
"Gracious, child! You don't want to see hostile Indians, do you?" queried Helen.
"I do, you bet," was the frank rejoinder.
"Well, I'LL bet that I'll be sorry I didn't leave you with mother.""Nell -- you never will!"
They reached Albuquerque about noon, and this important station, where they had to change trains, had been the first dreaded anticipation of the journey. It certainly was a busy place -- full of jabbering Mexicans, stalking, red-faced, wicked-looking cowboys, lolling Indians. In the confusion Helen would have been hard put to it to preserve calmness, with Bo to watch, and all that baggage to carry, and the other train to find; but the kindly brakeman who had been attentive to them now helped them off the train into the other -- a service for which Helen was very grateful.
"Albuquerque's a hard place," confided the trainman. "Better stay in the car -- and don't hang out the windows. . . .
Good luck to you!"