Chapter 21
Jacqueline could never ride a horse in that gown, or even sit
sidewise in the saddle without hopelessly crumpling it, so they
walked to the schoolhouse. It was a slow progress, for she had to
step lightly and carefully for fear of the slippers. He took her
bare arm and helped her; he would never have thought of it under
ordinary conditions, but since she had put on this gown she was
greatly changed to him, no longer the wild, free rider of the
mountain-desert, but a defenseless, strangely weak being. Her
strength was now something other than the skill to ride hard and
shoot straight and quick.
So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of
buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. They crowded
the horse-shed where the school children stabl
