Melissy of the Bar Double G - Chapter 4 The Man with the Chihuahua Hat

"Playing off for sick," he scoffed.

"I'm not," she protested. "Never get sick. It's just a sprained ankle."

"Sho! I guess you're Miss Make Believe; just harrowing the feelings of
your beaux."

"The way you talk! I haven't got any beaux. The boys are just my
friends."

"Oh, just friends! And no beaux. My, my! Not a single sweetheart in all
this wide open country. Shall I go rope you one and bring him in,
compadre?"

"No!" she exploded. "I don't want any. I'm not old enough yet." Her
dancing eyes belied the words.

"Now I wouldn't have guessed it. You look to me most ready to be picked."
He rested his weight on the farther stirrup and let his lazy smile mock
her. "My estimate would be sixteen. I'll bet you're every day of that."

"I only lack three months of being eighteen," she came back indignantly.

"You don't say! You'll ce'tainly have to be advertising for a husband
soon, Miss Three-Quarters-Past-Seventeen. Maybe an ad in the Mesa paper
would help. You ain't so awful bad looking."

"I'll let you write it. What would you say?" she demanded, a patch of pink
standing out near the curve of the cheek bone.

He swung from the saddle and flung the reins to the ground. With jingling
spurs he came up the steps and sat on the top one, his back against a
pillar. Boldly his admiring eyes swept her.