The
sheer joy of his laughter told him how badly he had been
frightened. That voice--were he sunk in twice as deep and dark an
inferno--he would know it among a thousand. He groped his way
forward toward it.
"Oh, little pardner, I'm plumb tickled to death you ain't a
ghost," he laughed.
"It is--Bucky?" The question joyfully answered itself.
"Right guess. Bucky it is."
He had hold of her hands by this time, was trying to peer down
into the happy-brown eyes he knew were scanning him. "I can't see
you yet, Curly Haid, but it's sure you, I reckon. I'll have to
pass my hand over your face the way a blind man does," he
laughed, and, greatly daring, he followed his own suggestion, and
let his fingers wander across her crisp, thick hair, down her
soft, warm cheeks, and over the saucy nose and laughing mouth he
had often longed to kiss.
Presently she drew away shyly, but the lilt of happiness in her
voice told him she was not offended. "I can see you, Bucky." The
last word came as usual, with that sweet, hesitating, upward
inflection that made her familiarity wholly intoxicating, even
while the comradeship of it left room for an interpretation
either of gay mockery or something deeper.
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