Chapter IX. Gwen

It was not many days after my arrival in the Foothill country that I began to hear of Gwen. They all had stories of her. The details were not many, but the impression was vivid. She lived remote from that centre of civilization known as Swan Creek in the postal guide, but locally as Old Latour's, far up among the hills near the Devil's Lake, and from her father's ranch she never ventured. But some of the men had had glimpses of her and had come to definite opinions regarding her.

"What is she like?" I asked Bill one day, trying to pin him down to something like a descriptive account of her.

"Like! She's a terrer," he said, with slow emphasis, "a holy terrer."

"But what is she like? What does she look like?" I asked impatiently.

"Look like?" He considered a moment, looked slowly round as if searching for a simile, then answered: "I dunno."

"Don't know? What do you mean? Haven't you seen her?"

"Yeh! But she ain't like nothin'."

Bill was quite decided upon this point.

I tried again.

"Well, what sort of hair has she got? She's got hair, I suppose?"

"Hayer! Well, a few!" said Bill, with some choice combinations of profanity in repudiation of my suggestion. "Yards of it! Red!"

"Git out!" contradicted Hi. "Red! Tain't no more red than mine!"

Bill regarded Hi's hair critically.

"What color do you put onto your old brush?" he asked cautiously.

"'Tain't no difference. 'Tain't red, anyhow."

"Red! Well, not quite exactly," and Bill went off into a low, long, choking chuckle, ejaculating now and then, "Red! Jee-mi-ny Ann! Red!"

"No, Hi," he went on, recovering himself with the same abruptness as he used with his bronco, and looking at his friend with a face even more than usually solemn, "your hayer ain't red, Hi; don't let any of your relatives persuade you to that. 'Tain't red!" and he threatened to go off again, but pulled himself up with dangerous suddenness. "It may be blue, cerulyum blue or even purple, but red--!" He paused violently, looking at his friend as if he found him a new and interesting object of study upon which he could not trust himself to speak. Nor could he be induced to proceed with the description he had begun.

But Hi, paying no attention to Bill's oration, took up the subject with enthusiasm.

"She kin ride--she's a reg'lar buster to ride, ain't she, Bill?" Bill nodded. "She kin bunch cattle an' cut out an' yank a steer up to any cowboy on the range."

"Why, how big is she?"

"Big? Why, she's just a kid! 'Tain't the bigness of her, it's the nerve. She's got the coldest kind of nerve you