For the first time I could get a good look at her undisturbed--if a bashful boy like me could be undisturbed journeying over the open prairie with a girl by his side--a girl altogether in his hands.
First I noticed that her hair, though dark brown, gave out gleams of bright dark fire as the sun shone through it in certain ways.

I kept glancing at that shifting gleam whenever we turned the slow team so that her hair caught the sun.

I have seen the same flame in the mane of a black horse bred from a sorrel dam or sire.

As a stock breeder I have learned that in such cases there is in the heredity the genetic unit of red hair overlaid with black pigment.

It is the same in people.
Virginia's father had red hair, and her sister Ann Gowdy had hair which was a dark auburn.