What was wanted was a method wherewith to prevent that lightning whirl. He must stop the animal before it got around. The reins2 would not do this. Neither would the spurs. Remained the quirt.
But how to accomplish it? Absent-minded moments were many that week, when, sitting in his office chair, in fancy he was astride the wonderful chestnut3 sorrel and trying to prevent an anticipated whirl. One such moment, toward the end of the week, occurred in the middle of a conference with Hegan. Hegan, elaborating a new and dazzling legal vision, became aware that Daylight was not listening. His eyes had gone lack-lustre, and he, too, was seeing with inner vision.
"Got it" he cried suddenly. "Hegan, congratulate me. It's as simple as rolling off a log. All I've got to do is hit him on the nose, and hit him hard."
Then he explained to the startled Hegan, and became a good listener again, though he could not refrain now and again from making audible chuckles4 of satisfaction and delight. That was the scheme. Bob always whirled to the right. Very well. He would double the quirt in his hand and, the instant of the whirl, that doubled quirt would rap Bob on the nose. The horse didn't live, after it had once learned the lesson, that would whirl in the face of the doubled quirt.
More keenly than ever, during that week in the office did Daylight realize that he had no social, nor even human contacts with Dede. The situation was such that he could not ask her the simple question whether or not she was going riding next Sunday. It was a hardship of a new sort, this being the employer of a pretty girl. He looked at her often, when the routine work of the day was going on, the question he could not ask her tickling6 at the founts of speech—Was she going riding next Sunday? And as he looked, he wondered how old she was, and what love passages she had had, must have had, with those college whippersnappers with whom, according to Morrison, she herded7 and danced. His mind was very full of her, those six days between the Sundays, and one thing he came to know thoroughly8 well; he wanted her. And so much did he want her that his old timidity of the apron-string was put to rout5. He, who had run away from women most of his life, had now grown so courageous9 as to pursue. Some Sunday, sooner or later, he would meet her outside the office, somewhere in the hills, and then, if they did not get acquainted, it would be because she did not care to get acquainted.
Thus he found another card in the hand the mad god had dealt him.
How important that card was to become he did not dream, yet he decided10 that it was a pretty good card. In turn, he doubted. Maybe it was a trick of Luck to bring calamity11 and disaster upon him. Suppose Dede wouldn't have him, and suppose he went on loving her more and more, harder and harder? All his old generalized terrors of love revived. He remembered the disastrous12 love affairs of men and women he had known in the past. There was Bertha Doolittle, old Doolittle's daughter, who had been madly in love with Dartworthy, the rich Bonanza13 fraction owner; and Dartworthy, in turn, not loving Bertha at all, but madly loving Colonel Walthstone's wife and eloping down the Yukon with her; and Colonel Walthstone himself, madly loving his own wife and lighting14 out in pursuit of the fleeing couple. And what had been the outcome? Certainly Bertha's love had been unfortunate and tragic15, and so had the love of the other three. Down below Minook, Colonel Walthstone and Dartworthy had fought it out. Dartworthy had been killed. A bullet through the Colonel's lungs had so weakened him that he died of pneumonia16 the following spring. And the Colonel's wife had no one left alive on earth to love.
And then there was Freda, drowning herself in the running mush-ice because of some man on the other side of the world, and hating him, Daylight, because he had happened along and pulled her out of the mush-ice and back to life. And the Virgin17.... The old memories frightened him. If this love-germ gripped him good and hard, and if Dede wouldn't have him, it might be almost as bad as being gouged18 out of all he had by Dowsett, Letton, and Guggenhammer. Had his nascent19 desire for Dede been less, he might well have been frightened out of all thought of her. As it was, he found consolation20 in the thought that some love affairs did come out right. And for all he knew, maybe Luck had stacked the cards for him to win. Some men were born lucky, lived lucky all their days, and died lucky. Perhaps, too, he was such a man, a born luck-pup who could not lose.
Sunday came, and Bob, out in the Piedmont hills, behaved like an angel. His goodness, at times, was of the spirited prancing21 order, but otherwise he was a lamb. Daylight, with doubled quirt ready in his right hand, ached for a whirl, just one whirl, which Bob, with an excellence22 of conduct that was tantalizing23, refused to perform. But no Dede did Daylight encounter. He vainly circled about among the hill roads and in the afternoon took the steep grade over the divide of the second range and dropped into Maraga Valley. Just after passing the foot of the descent, he heard the hoof24 beats of a cantering horse. It was from ahead and coming toward him. What if it were Dede? He turned Bob around and started to return at a walk. If it were Dede, he was born to luck, he decided; for the meeting couldn't have occurred under better circumstances. Here they were, both going in the same direction, and the canter would bring her up to him just where the stiff grade would compel a walk. There would be nothing else for her to do than ride with him to the top of the divide; and, once there, the equally stiff descent on the other side would compel more walking.
The canter came nearer, but he faced straight ahead until he heard the horse behind check to a walk. Then he glanced over his shoulder. It was Dede. The recognition was quick, and, with her, accompanied by surprise. What more natural thing than that, partly turning his horse, he should wait till she caught up with him; and that, when abreast25 they should continue abreast on up the grade? He could have sighed with relief. The thing was accomplished26, and so easily. Greetings had been exchanged; here they were side by side and going in the same direction with miles and miles ahead of them.
"Oh, what a beauty" she had cried at sight of Bob. From the shining light in her eyes, and the face filled with delight, he would scarcely have believed that it belonged to a young woman he had known in the office, the young woman with the controlled, subdued28 office face.
"I didn't know you rode," was one of her first remarks. "I imagined you were wedded29 to get-there-quick machines."
"I've just taken it up lately," was his answer. "Beginning to get stout30; you know, and had to take it off somehow."
She gave a quick sidewise glance that embraced him from head to heel, including seat and saddle, and said:—
"But you've ridden before."
She certainly had an eye for horses and things connected with horses was his thought, as he replied:—
"Not for many years. But I used to think I was a regular rip-snorter when I was a youngster up in Eastern Oregon, sneaking31 away from camp to ride with the cattle and break cayuses and that sort of thing."
Thus, and to his great relief, were they launched on a topic of mutual32 interest. He told her about Bob's tricks, and of the whirl and his scheme to overcome it; and she agreed that horses had to be handled with a certain rational severity, no matter how much one loved them. There was her Mab, which she had for eight years and which she had had break of stall-kicking. The process had been painful for Mab, but it had cured her.
"You've ridden a lot," Daylight said.
"I really can't remember the first time I was on a horse," she told him. "I was born on a ranch33, you know, and they couldn't keep me away from the horses. I must have been born with the love for them. I had my first pony34, all my own, when I was six. When I was eight I knew what it was to be all day in the saddle along with Daddy. By the time I was eleven he was taking me on my first deer hunts. I'd be lost without a horse. I hate indoors, and without Mab here I suppose I'd have been sick and dead long ago."
"You like the country?" he queried35, at the same moment catching36 his first glimpse of a light in her eyes other than gray. "As much as I detest37 the city," she answered. "But a woman can't earn a living in the country. So I make the best of it—along with Mab."
And thereat she told him more of her ranch life in the days before her father died. And Daylight was hugely pleased with himself. They were getting acquainted. The conversation had not lagged in the full half hour they had been together.
"We come pretty close from the same part of the country," he said. "I was raised in Eastern Oregon, and that's none so far from Siskiyou."
The next moment he could have bitten out his tongue for her quick question was:—
"How did you know I came from Siskiyou? I'm sure I never mentioned it."
"I don't know," he floundered temporarily. "I heard somewhere that you were from thereabouts."
Wolf, sliding up at that moment, sleek-footed and like a shadow, caused her horse to shy and passed the awkwardness off, for they talked Alaskan dogs until the conversation drifted back to horses. And horses it was, all up the grade and down the other side.
When she talked, he listened and followed her, and yet all the while he was following his own thoughts and impressions as well. It was a nervy thing for her to do, this riding astride, and he didn't know, after all, whether he liked it or not. His ideas of women were prone38 to be old-fashioned; they were the ones he had imbibed39 in the early-day, frontier life of his youth, when no woman was seen on anything but a side-saddle. He had grown up to the tacit fiction that women on horseback were not bipeds. It came to him with a shock, this sight of her so manlike in her saddle. But he had to confess that the sight looked good to him just then.
Two other immediate40 things about her struck him. First, there were the golden spots in her eyes. Queer that he had never noticed them before. Perhaps the light in the office had not been right, and perhaps they came and went. No; they were glows of color—a sort of diffused41, golden light. Nor was it golden, either, but it was nearer that than any color he knew. It certainly was not any shade of yellow. A lover's thoughts are ever colored, and it is to be doubted if any one else in the world would have called Dede's eyes golden. But Daylight's mood verged42 on the tender and melting, and he preferred to think of them as golden, and therefore they were golden.
And then she was so natural. He had been prepared to find her a most difficult young woman to get acquainted with. Yet here it was proving so simple. There was nothing highfalutin about her company manners—it was by this homely43 phrase that he differentiated44 this Dede on horseback from the Dede with the office manners whom he had always known. And yet, while he was delighted with the smoothness with which everything was going, and with the fact that they had found plenty to talk about, he was aware of an irk under it all. After all, this talk was empty and idle. He was a man of action, and he wanted her, Dede Mason, the woman; he wanted her to love him and to be loved by him; and he wanted all this glorious consummation then and there. Used to forcing issues used to gripping men and things and bending them to his will, he felt, now, the same compulsive prod45 of mastery. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and that there was nothing else for her to do but marry him. And yet he did not obey the prod. Women were fluttery creatures, and here mere46 mastery would prove a bungle47. He remembered all his hunting guile48, the long patience of shooting meat in famine when a hit or a miss meant life or death. Truly, though this girl did not yet mean quite that, nevertheless she meant much to him—more, now, than ever, as he rode beside her, glancing at her as often as he dared, she in her corduroy riding-habit, so bravely manlike, yet so essentially49 and revealingly woman, smiling, laughing, talking, her eyes sparkling, the flush of a day of sun and summer breeze warm in her cheeks.
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1
plying
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的现在分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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2
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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3
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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chuckles
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的名词复数 ) | |
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5
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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tickling
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| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
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7
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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8
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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9
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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10
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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12
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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13
bonanza
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| n.富矿带，幸运，带来好运的事 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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15
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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18
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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19
nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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prancing
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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23
tantalizing
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| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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24
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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25
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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26
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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28
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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29
wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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32
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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35
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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36
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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37
detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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38
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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39
imbibed
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| v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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40
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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41
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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42
verged
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| 接近，逼近（verge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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43
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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44
differentiated
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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45
prod
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| vt.戳，刺；刺激，激励 | |
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46
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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47
bungle
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| v.搞糟；n.拙劣的工作 | |
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48
guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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49
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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