“I’ll be darned if I did,” he laughed back. “There was where all signs failed. I didn’t have a statistic that applied to you. I merely acknowledged to myself that here was the most wonderful female woman ever born with two good legs, and I knew that I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything. I just had to have her — ”

“And got her,” Paula completed for him. “But since, Red Cloud, since. Surely you’ve accumulated enough statistics on me.”

“A few, quite a few,” he admitted. “But I hope never to get the last one — ”

He broke off at sound of the unmistakable nicker of Mountain Lad. The stallion appeared, the cowboy on his back, and Dick gazed for a moment at the perfect action of the beast’s