Her one hand was a-restin' on the pommel. I reached up--only a stay-chain could a' helt me back then--and took it into both of mine. Say! did you ever holt a little, flutterin' bird 'twixt you' two palms? "Macie," I says, "Macie Sewell." And I pressed her hand agin my face. She lent towards me again. It wasn't more'n a soft breath, and I could hardly hear. But nobody but me and that little ole bronc of hern'll ever know what it was she said. CHAPTER FOUR CONCERIN' THE SHERIFF AND ANOTHER LITTLE WIDDA AW! them first days out at the Bar Y ranch-house!--them first days! _No_body could 'a' been happier'n I was then. I hit the ranch on a Friday, about six in the evenin', it was, I reckon,--in time fer supper, anyhow. The punchers et in a room acrosst the kitchen from where the fambly et. And I recollect that sometimes durin' that meal, as the Chink come outen the kitchen, totin' grub to us, I just could ketch sight of Macie's haid in the far room, bobbin' over her plate. And ev'ry time I'd see her, I'd git so blamed flustered that my knife 'd miss my mouth and jab me in the jaw, 'r else I'd spill somethin' 'r other on to Monkey Mike. And after supper, when the sun was down, and they was just a kinda half-light on the mesquite, and the ole man was on the east porch, smokin', and the boys was all lined up along the front of the bunk-house, clean outen sight of the far side of the yard, why, I just sorta wandered over to the calf-corral, then 'round by the barn and the Chink's shack, and landed up out to the west, where they's a row of cottonwoods by the new irrigatin' ditch. Beyond, acrosst about a hunderd mile of brown plain, here was the moon a-risin', bigger'n a dish-pan, and a cold white. I stood agin a tree and watched it crawl through the clouds. The frogs was a-watchin', too, I reckon, fer they begun to holler like the dickens, some bass and some squeaky. And then, from the other side of the ranch-house, struck up a mouth-organ: "Sweet is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides On its fair, windin' way to the sea----" A wait--ten seconds 'r so (it seemed longer); then, the same part of the song, over again, and---- Outen the side door of the porch next me come a slim, little figger in white. It stepped down where some sun-flowers was a-growin' agin the wall. Say! it was just sunflower high! Then it come acrosst the alfalfa--like a butterfly. And then---- "Don't you want a shawl 'round you' shoulders, honey? It's some chilly." "No." (Did you ever see a gal that'd own up she needed a wrap?) "Wal, you got to have _somethin'_ 'round you." And so I helt her clost, and put my hand under her chin t' tip it so's I could see her face. "You _mustn't,_ Alec!" (She was allus shy about bein' kissed.)