She glanced towards this childlike person and saw from his stealthy manner that he had more to impart.  He walked towards the kitchen door, saw no one, and came back to Mary.

“There ain’t a man in this Gawd-forsaken country wouldn’t lope at the chance to die for her—­but the women!” Leander’s pantomimic indication of absolute feminine antagonism was conclusive.

“The wimmin treats her scabby—­just scabby.  Don’t you go to thinkin’ she ain’t a good girl on that account”; and something like an attitude of chivalrous protection straightened the apologetic crook in his craven outline.

“She’s good, just good, and when a woman’s that there’s no use in sayin’ it any more fanciful.  As I says to my wife, every time she give me a chance, ’If Judy wasn’t a good girl these boys about here would just natchrally become extinct shootin’ each other upon account of her.’  But she don’t favor none enough to cause trouble.”

“Are the women jealous of her?”

“It’s her independence that riles ’em.  They take on awful about her ridin’ in pants, an’ it certainly is a heap more modest than ridin’ straddle in a hitched up caliker skirt, same as some of them do.”

“And do all the women out here ride astride?” Mary gasped.

“A good many does, when you ain’t watchin’; horses in these parts ain’t broke for no such lopsided foolishness as side-saddles.  But you see she does it becomin’, and that’s where the grudge comes in.  You can’t stir about these foot-hills without coming across a woman, like as not, holdin’ on to a posse of kids, and ridin’ clothes-pin fashion in a looped-up skirt; when she sees you comin’ she’ll p’r’aps upset a kid or two assoomin’ a decorous attitood.  That’s feemi_nine_, and as such is approved by the ladies, but”—­and here Leander put his head on one side and gave a grotesque impression of outraged decorum—­“pants is considered unwomanly.”

“Leander!  Leander!” came in accusing accents from the kitchen.

“Run!” gasped Mrs. Dax’s handmaiden; “don’t let her catch us chinnin’.”

Mary Carmichael ran round one side of the house as she was bidden, but, like Lot’s wife, could not resist the temptation of looking back.  Leander, with incredible rapidity, grabbed two clothes-pins off the line, clutched a dish-towel, shook it.  “Comin’! comin’!” he called, as he went through the farce of rehanging it.

The lonesomeness of plain and foot-hill, the utter lack of the human element that gives to this country its character of penetrating desolation, had been changed while Mary Carmichael forgathered with Leander by the clothes-line.  From the four quarters of the compass, men in sombreros, flannel shirts, and all manner of strange habiliments came galloping over the roads as if their horses were as keen on reaching Dax’s as their riders.  They came towards the house at full tilt, their horses stretching flat with ears laid back viciously, and Mary, who was unused to the tricks of cow-ponies, expected to see them ride through the front door, merely by way of demonstrating their sense of humor.  Not so; the little pintos, buckskins, bays, and chestnuts dashed to the door and stopped short in a full gallop; as a bit of staccato equestrianism it was superb.