"
"That's right strange," he mused aloud. "For judging by some of
your ways you're the spinster Miss Messiter was telling me about,
but judging by your looks y'u're only the prettiest and sassiest
twenty-year-old in Wyoming."
And with this shot he fled, to see what transformation he could
effect with the aid of a whiskbroom, a tin pan of alkali water
and a roller towel.
When she met him at the supper table her first question was, "Did
Miss Messiter say I was an old maid?"
"Sho! I wouldn't let that trouble me if I was y'u. A woman ain't
any older than she looks. Your age don't show to speak of."
"But did she?"
"I reckon she laid a trap for me and I shoved my paw in. She
wanted to give me a pleasant surprise."
"Oh!"
"Don't y'u grow anxious about being an old maid. There ain't any
in Wyoming to speak of. If y'u like I'll tell the boys you're
worried and some of them will be Johnnie-on-the-Spot. They're
awful gallant, cowpunchers are."
"Some of them may be," she differed. "If you want to know I'm
just twenty-one."
He sawed industriously at his steak. "Y'u don't say! Just old
enough to vote--like this steer was before they massacreed him."
She gave him one look, and thereafter punished him with silence.
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