e to walk over to Mrs. Randal's and see my friend Miss
Woodburn, since she couldn't come to me. The place was less than a mile
away by short cuts which he knew, and he would take me there.

The shadows were beginning to grow long and thin when we started,
though the sun was still bright, so I carried a sunshade, and went
hatless, American fashion.

To avoid going out in the road we took field paths and skirted along
the edge of meadows where grain was tall and golden, or white as a
summer snowstorm. There were no proper stiles, as with us, so whenever
we came to one of the rough fences which divided one field from another
I had to mount on the first or second bar, and let Mr. Brett lift me
over.

He is so strong that he did it as if I were a bundle of down instead of
a tall girl, and I had much the same exhilarating sensation I used to
have as a wee thing when I rode wildly on Mohunsleigh's foot. I was
glad when we came to the fences, and that there were a good many of
them. But I wasn't at all glad when Mr. Brett jumped me over into a
grass meadow where there was a whole drove of ferocious-looking black
and white cattle.

"_Couldn't_ we go some other way round?" I asked, longing to get behind
him, but ashamed for him to see what an idiot I am about cows, and
perhaps make him lose his good opinion of me as a reasonably brave
girl.

"I'm afraid not, unless we turn back," said he. "But you needn't mind
them. Remember, you're with an old 'cow puncher.'"

"Oh, were you one, too?" I asked trying to seem at ease.

"Too?"

"I was thinking of a friend of my cousin Mohunsleigh's whom he was
always talking about, a Mr. Harborough, who lives in San Francisco.
Mohunsleigh knew him abroad somewhere. _He_ used to be a 'cow
puncher,'--whatever that is--in Texas, I believe, though now he's a
millionaire. Did you ever hear of him?"

"Yes," said Mr. Brett, in rather a dry way.

"I was so disappointed not to meet him."

(As we walked on, I kept my eyes on the horrible animals who were
grazing at some distance.)

"Why?" he asked the question almost sharply.

"Because my cousin says he's such a glorious person."

"Well gilded, anyhow."

"Oh, I don't mean on that account. I'm rather blase of millionaires
lately. But from Mohunsleigh's accounts he must be--well, the sort of a
man we like."

"We?"

"Girls. Brave and adventurous, and reckless, and that sort of thing."

"I'm afraid his millions are more of an attraction