Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/266

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Fay won. Sir Brian, who could ride anywhere, climb anywhere, shoot anywhere, and who appeared to think that just for a woman to put on hiking breeches and a flannel shirt made her as wiry as a monkey and as strong as an orangoutang, set out to justify the ladies' faith in him. He delivered Fay, after much laborious exertion, at an isolated spot on the vertebra of the continent where she actually saw a mountain sheep—that is, she saw something like a huge, dirty, white object that stared for an instant, wall-eyed, and then soared like a bird from one detached pinnacle to another, after which it kicked up its heels and dropped suddenly out of sight.

"Oh, what a jump!" Fay exclaimed.

"But, why didn't you shoot?" complained Sir Brian.

"Shoot? What was there to shoot at?" she argued innocently.

And in truth, what was there to shoot at—the sheep having vanished so quickly? Nothing at all now, but Sir Brian's gray and slightly perturbed eyes, and the woman straightway shot at them with her violet ones. Sir Brian, clean and picturesque in his weather-worn hunting rig, and she in her khaki breeches and leathern jacket, with the little cloth hat rolled bewitchingly to one side—there they stood, very close together, breathing quickly from the exertion of