The stranger with his carefully tailored clothing
and his man-of-the-world face and bearing was as unlike this rider of
the unfenced lands as a daintily groomed thoroughbred from the
sheltered and guarded stables of fashion is unlike a wild, untamed
stallion from the hills and ranges about Granite Mountain. Yet, unlike
as they were, there was a something that marked them as kin. The man of
the ranges and the man of the cities were, deep beneath the surface of
their beings, as like as the spirited thoroughbred and the unbroken wild
horse. The cowboy was all that the stranger might have been. The
stranger was all that the cowboy, under like conditions, would have
been.
As they silently faced each other it seemed for a moment that each
instinctively recognized this kinship. Then into the dark eyes of the
stranger--as when he had watched the cowboy at the Burnt Ranch--there
came that look of wistful admiration and envy.
And at this, as if the man had somehow made himself known, the horseman
relaxed his attitude of tense readiness. The hand that had held the
bridle rein to command instant action of his horse, and the hand that
had rested so near the rider's hip, came together on the saddle horn in
careless ease, while a boyish smile of amusement broke over the young
man's face.
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