Читать книгу The Temptress (La tierra de todos) онлайн

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But how surprised that other man would be to see her in a feminine riding skirt! No, she didn’t want to surprise him that way.... He had always seen her in boy’s clothes and so he always treated her with the friendly confidence he would have for someone of his own sex. Who could tell what would happen were he to see her wearing skirts, just like a young lady? He might grow shy and begin being tremendously polite, and finally stop seeing her altogether!

So she left her girl’s clothes on the horse she had ridden to the willows, gaily mounted the other, and pressing her slim feet against his flanks, tossed her lassoo in the air, making spirals of rope above her head.

And now the Flower of Rio Negro was galloping along the river bank through the aged willow trees that droop their festoons of delicate green over the gliding water. This solitary river roadway, that stretched from the storm-beaten peaks of the Andes, on the Pacific side, to its wide outlet in the Atlantic, had been named Black River because of the dark-colored plants which covered its bed, giving a greenish tinge to the snow waters of the distant mountains.