“Wet anyway, even if warm, eh, Dick?” he remarked, when done.  “Don’t drink it all, old scout; leave a swallow for the ladies.”  Still on his knees he looked appraisingly down the creek and then up it, and added derisively, “Some stream, this Perro, some stream!”

After rolling and lighting a cigarette, he meditated for a time in the same kneeling position.  His horse finished drinking and moved a step nearer his master, where he stood with head lowered, water dripping from his lip, body inert.  But presently he pricked his ears and turning his head toward the other bank gave a low whinny.  Bryant got to his feet.

The two women he had beheld at a distance had now reached the ford.  Their ponies snuffing water immediately dipped into the creek bed and crossed its sandy bottom with quickened steps.  Young women the riders were, scarcely more than girls, it seemed to Bryant; wearing divided khaki skirts and white shirt waists and wide-brimmed straw hats tied with thongs under their chins.  In this region where white men were none too numerous, and women of their own kind scarcer yet, and girls scarcest of all, the presence here of the pair aroused in the young fellow a lively interest.

He led Dick aside that their ponies might approach the pool.

“Thank you; they are very thirsty,” said the nearer girl, with a nod.  The ponies plunged forefeet into the water and stood thus with noses buried, drinking with eager gulps.  “The afternoon is so hot and the road so dusty,” the speaker continued, “that the poor things were almost choked.”

She was the smaller of the pair, of medium height and having a graceful, well-molded figure, with frank gray eyes, a nose showing a few freckles, smooth soft cheeks slightly reddened by sun, and an expressive mouth.  Bryant judged that she had small, firm hands, but could not see them as she wore gauntlets.  He further decided that she was neither plain nor pretty:  just average good-looking, one might say.  An air of friendliness was in her favour, though what might or might not be a prepossessing trait, depending on circumstances, was the suggested obstinacy in her round chin.

“Don’t you yourselves wish a drink?  You must be thirsty, too,” Bryant addressed the young ladies.  “If your ponies won’t stand, I’ll look after them.”

“Oh, they’ll not run off, unless we forget to let the reins hang, as has happened once or twice,” said the girl who previously had spoken.  “For they’re regular cow-ponies.  At first we had a hard time remembering just to drop the lines when we dismounted instead of tying them to a post somewhere; and for a while we had a feeling that they certainly would gallop off if we did let the reins hang, as we’d been instructed.  But they never did.”  She turned to her companion.  “Imo, aren’t you thirsty?  I’m going to get down and have a drink.”  With which she swung herself down from her saddle upon the sand.

The second girl was tall and thin, lacking both the spirits and stamina of the other; a crown of fluffy golden hair was hinted by the little of it the young fellow could see under the brim of her big hat; her eyes were of a soft blue colour, probably weak; while her face, the skin of which was exceedingly white with but a tinge of the sun’s fiery burn, was regular of feature and delicately formed.