"Girls must play the very deuce with a man if he ever lets them
get on his mind," he mused. "I see right now where a fellow
about my size and complexion had better watch out." But he
smiled afterward, as if he did not consider the matter very
serious, after all.
CHAPTER VI
THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL PLAYS GHOST
At midnight, the Peaceful Hart ranch lay broodily quiet under its
rock-rimmed bluff. Down in tho stable the saddle-horses were but
formless blots upon the rumpled bedding in their stalls--except
Huckleberry, the friendly little pinto with the white eyelashes
and the blue eyes, and the great, liver-colored patches upon his
sides, and the appetite which demanded food at unseasonable
hours, who was now munching and nosing industriously in the
depths of his manger, and making a good deal of noise about it.
Outside, one of the milch cows drew a long, sighing breath of
content with life, lifted a cud in mysterious, bovine manner, and
chewed dreamily. Somewhere up the bluff a bobcat squalled among
the rocks, and the moon, in its dissipated season of late rising,
lifted itself indolently up to where it could peer down upon the
silent ranch.
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