Sergeant Jack Childress found himself in an exceedingly difficult position, but one from which there seemed no honorable escape. The transfer papers to the section he had claimed were not yet returned from the official desk to which they had been taken for signature. He could not leave the land office without them, even had it been in his nature to run from trouble.
No great strain on the imagination was required to account for the land agent's unspoken summons. Probably he, too, had felt the pathos in the flame lady's voice. The sergeant was about to be asked to select another section, thus adding his own meed of tribute to the chivalry of the West.
Had it been a man who wished to contest his luck in the ranch lottery, Childress would have welcomed the issue. But a woman—so young a woman, with such dangerous hair, brought draft upon a sort of courage he seldom had been called upon to use.
He did not hesitate, at least not to any perceptible degree. His advance was slow, as if in doubt that the land agent really had summoned him. On the way he studied this new and unexpected problem. Even as untrained in femininity as was he, certain deductions were possible.
Her dress, he was inclined to believe, wasn't really a dress at all, but a skirt attached to a waist of French flannel, possibly out of respect to Strathconna, the city. Well-worn riding-boots which showed beneath the hem told him that much. Through the combination her figure showed that it was of the slender, curveless strength which comes from a life of activity in the open. Easily might she have been prettier; yet she might have been a whole lot worse. He had a thought-flash contrasting this unknown with the dashing brunette beauty of the Indian reservation race the previous morning. What had got into Fate to throw him twice within twenty-four hours out of his wonted man's man groove?
"As long as you two strangers happen to be interested in the same section of our wonderful Dominion," the agent opened urbanely, "it occurred to me that you ought to meet." He glanced for reference at the girl's application blank and then at the completed one originally offered by the man. "Miss Bernice Gallegher, of Fire Weed, permit me to present Mr. John Childress, of—of Montana."
There seemed nothing to do but offer his hand. The girl took it, but the shake was of the "pump-handle" variety. As soon as possible she broke the clasp. But her eyes remained upon him, puzzled, questioning. The sergeant knew she saw a resemblance to some one in her past life—that she was trying to place him. He breathed a prayer that the change from bright uniform to somber mufti would prove a sufficient disguise.
Had he heard the agent aright, no little illumination had come to the sergeant. "Miss Gallegher, of Fire Weed!" Only a few hours before he had been wondering why this particular section, key to one of the easiest outlets across the international boundary, had not been claimed, either by Gallegher or the Rafter A interests. And now this surprising young woman had been sent to buy it in and had arrived a moment too late!
There was a period of mutual embarrassment. The considerate land agent had turned to some files within the railing. The situation was theirs to do with as they might. But which one of them should open?
Childress felt the danger of those freckle-colored eyes, the freckles of which had escaped his notice that night at the border. Although well trained in the edict of the Mounted—"never fire first"—he considered that as applying to gun-fire rather than speech.
"I'm sorry we happened to pick upon the same section, Miss Gallegher," he said. "Of the countless others that are loose in the Dominion, isn't there one that would suit you as well?" With purpose well defined, he changed his voice from normal cadence.
"Beat me to it again," she mourned.
For the first time she laughed, but mirthlessly and without a smile.
"Again?"
"That very same question was on my lips—or just behind them. Isn't there any other section of land in all Canada that would suit you as well? If it is humanly possible I must take title to this one back to my father."
There was a troubled, considering quality in her tone; a naive suggestiveness in the lift of her long bronze lashes.
The difficulty of Sergeant Jack was approaching the acute stage. There was no other section of land in all Canada that suited his purpose; yet he could not tell this strangely appealing young creature why this was the key acreage. It was vital that none should know him for what he really was. So clever, so daring had been the operation of the rustlers of this prize Canadian horse stock that no one could be trusted. He felt the need of verbal fencing now, especially as a possibility that their former meeting might be disclosed to further handicap him.
"How long has your father lived in Fire Weed?" he asked suddenly.
"Ten years. But what has that to do with it?"
"And all these ten years this particular section has been open to purchase. How comes it that you only want it now that someone else does?"
Bernice drew up with scorn, her nose taking an increasingly impertinent tilt. "I can see that it's hopeless to treat with you, but I don't mind answering your question. It was plumb carelessness on our part, once we had enough money to buy it. We thought the Rafter A owned it. Reckon they thought we did. It takes a greener to come along and get at the truth of no-man's land. Now, then, Mr. Childress, will you tell me why you covet this particular gap in our glorious hills?"
Evidently a straight-shooter, this Flame of Fire Weed! She was out with the one question he wished she had not thought to ask. He could not answer in full truth and he doubted that any half measure would satisfy one whose eyes were so discriminating.
"I shall graze some stock," he began lamely.
"Horse or cow?"
"Probably both; and we'll be sort of neighbors, won't we?"
She shrugged her thin young shoulders. "Geographically speaking, yes; but otherwise we're not very neighborly down in Fire Weed, particularly with a man who's going to graze 'probably both.'"
Bernice was turning to leave the office, admitting defeat, but with no quiver of lip.
"Just a moment, Miss Gallegher," he begged, something inside him commanding that he not let her depart in entire despair. After all, he'd only require that section a few months if luck was with him. Evidently she had been sent on the long ride to town to corral the range on some sudden tip that it still was open to purchase. No telling what sort of a father awaited her at the home ranch—perhaps a cross-patch, maybe a tyrant. She needn't go back without some hope, so far as he was concerned. He could promise her something without jeopardizing his mission. For the first time in his bashful life he really wanted to promise a woman something.
For a moment he thought she did not intend to turn back. Although she paused at his suggestion, she kept her eyes fixed upon the stairway. The sigh with which she at last returned to him might have been from despair, from resignation—what not.
"I just wanted to say," Childress snapped into it before the impulse evaded him, "that I may not like ranching in the Fire Weed. If I find that I don't, or if, for any other reason, I decide to give up my little ranch—the first I've ever owned, by the way—I promise to give you ample advance notice, so that you can, if you like, step into my shoes."
Strangely enough, there was almost venom in the look with which she now studied him. Suddenly a small gasp of intensity quivered through her slender, strong body. Gone was her dreaminess, her resignation or despair.
"I'll promise you, stranger, that you won't like ranching in Fire Weed," she snapped, "but I'll be damned if I'll step into any man's shoes." And with that she was gone.
Childress realized that he had spoken his well-meant offer sadly, yet that scarcely accounted the ill-will of her response. She seemed as sure that he would not enjoy life in the wonderful hills of her home country as if she knew a dozen reasons why. A sudden suspicion caught him. Was it possible that "Pop" Gallegher, her father, was implicated in the stock stealing which had continued so successfully for more than a year? Was that why he wanted the gap between his own range and the Rafter A—wanted it so badly that he sent his daughter loping to claim it the moment he found it was open to purchase? Never had he seen the parent, but he had heard of him as "hard." No more could he answer the questions he had put to himself. But they would be answered, these questions, even though he dreaded further contact with the sharp-tongued range nymph who had promised him in turn. Or did he dread this prospect? Thank Heaven she did not connect him with that uniformed knight at the border. Declining to answer even his innermost self, he accepted from the land clerk his documents of title and took himself off to locate, as soon as possible, the "Mountie" constable, assigned to act as his aide in the rôle of ranch hand and instructed to meet him here in Strathconna.
With the sergeant engaged in his search for one of the Force as equally under cover as himself, suppose the scene and setting changed to the handsome home of Major Ivan MacDonald, a rambling stucco structure which with several others, more or less pretentious, occupied the crest of Strathconna's only hill. It wasn't a Mount Royal such as Montreal knows, although that was the name they gave it. It wasn't even a Sherbrook Street, this fashion place of the town that wouldn't admit to mushroom growth. But to dwell there was a badge of wealth and the major was keen for badges.
The mansion boasted a spacious dining-room, the walls of which were decorated with superbly mounted heads of animals—elk, buffalo, moose, grizzly and mountain goat—every one of which had fallen under the aim of the old sportsman. He and Fitzrapp were already at table when Ethel Andress breezed in and greeted them cheerfully. Between the two men ensued a friendly competition over which one should have the honor of seating her.
"I tried to have a guest at dinner to-night," remarked the pioneer, as the meal began.
"Who was he, Major?" asked Fitzrapp. "I didn't know there was any visitor worth while in town."
"Worth while?" echoed the old gentleman, with twinkling eyes. "Well, I should say this particular visitor was very much worth while!"
"Quit teasing, uncle," begged Ethel, "and tell us whom you invited."
"Your new young man." The pioneer smiled at her.
"My what?"
"Why, the young chap from the States, Mr. Childress, who saved you yesterday from death by the prairie-dog route."
Mrs. Andress gave a slight start of surprise, and the lids narrowed over the turquoise eyes whose contrast with her raven hair formed one of several attractive details that won her class as a beauty. As her uncle had not mentioned the man in khaki after their ride together the day before, she had assumed that the supposed American had not measured up to her relative's standards.
"Out of your own mouth, uncle of mine, you stand convicted of a trifling misstatement," she inserted quickly, by way of covering any undue interest her face might have shown. "Were he my young man, new or old, he wouldn't have refused an invitation to dine here. I'm surprised that this particular individual did refuse, though, for yesterday he looked as hungry as one of the reservation braves. What reason did he give?"
"The best in the world—a previous engagement, both for last night and to-night. Can it be possible, Ethel, that you're losing your knack with strange males? Your fatal beauty——"
An unexplained chuckle from Tom Fitzrapp interrupted.
"Is this some joke you two have framed on poor me?" demanded the widow. "I certainly didn't ask him to rescue me."
"Mr. Thomas Fitzrapp seems to know something about this previous engagement business," suggested the major.
Again Fitzrapp chuckled. "I did run into the spectacular rescuer this afternoon. He was striding around Victoria Park as though he owned the institution, looking wise over the tryouts, and asking all manner of questions about who bred this or that likely one and where they ranged."
"Have any talk with him?" asked MacDonald.
"I didn't speak to him, and if he noticed me at all, I don't believe he remembered me from yesterday. Probably his mental picture-album retained only one face." He glanced jealously at Ethel who had colored slightly under the continuing fire. "I got a hint of the nature of his questions, and as they coincided with certain suspicions that I formed yesterday, I decided to find out what he was up to."
"You followed him?" asked Ethel Andress indignantly.
"Yes, I certainly did," returned Fitzrapp brazenly. "I trailed him to the Chateau Royal. You'll never guess who he met there."
Neither the widow nor her uncle seemed anxious to try, although if they continued to feel disapproval of their ranch manager's action, their faces did not show it.
"That bonfire brat of Gallegher's from down on the range!" exclaimed Fitzrapp with effect.
"Bonfire brat, indeed!" cried Mrs. Andress, rising to the defence of her sex. "Shame on you, Tom Fitzrapp. It's true that the Gallegher outfit is something of a pest in the Fire Weed, but you needn't forget that Bernice has the instincts of a lady. I'll have an apology in behalf of Mother Eve's whole family."
She received and accepted a makeshift in the form of a "Sorry, Ethel."
"Wonder what Bernice is doing in Strathconna?" the widow mused aloud. "Was she in breeches, Tom?"
Fitzrapp shook his head. "Dress—black dress. Didn't know she could look so pretty, the flame lady from Fire Weed."
"Did he—this Childress person—did he seem very attentive?" Mrs. Andress asked, for once forgetting her line.
"Oh, hell!" muttered Fitzrapp.
The old major stepped into the imminent breach.
"You've considerable native shrewdness, Tom, as well as some unreasonable jealousy," he observed. "Outside of his meeting up with Miss Gallegher, what reason can you supply for suspecting a stranger who did us an exceedingly fine turn?"
"Why, partly intuition and partly something tangible," replied the ranch manager, seriously and with seeming frankness. "Did you observe the silver stallion he rode, Major?"
"An exceedingly fine animal, my boy; one I would like to own. What of that?"
The foreman permitted a dramatic pause.
"You are interested in stopping the rustling of Ethel's horses?" came sudden inquiry.
"You know how interested I am. The rustling must be stopped! But what is the connection between rustling from the Rafter A and following a hard-riding gent around Strathconna as though he were a criminal?"
"I realize I'm going to make myself unpopular, as you and Ethel both seem fascinated with the chap; but criminal is exactly what I expect this Childress will prove to be. Every time we've had a glimpse of the raiders the leader rode a silver stallion. The creamy beast was just such a splendid specimen as this Montana man rides. I mean to learn all I can about him."
"Rubbish!" cried MacDonald warmly. "If he was——"
"That's what I say," interrupted Ethel with considerable scorn, in the use of which she was an expert when the occasion seemed to demand.
"You're forgetting the flame, Bernice," suggested Fitzrapp.
"And I fear you're letting your jealousy of anyone who looks at Ethel run away with you, my dear fellow," chided the pioneer. "Youforget that the Gallegher outfit has lost stock as well as the Rafter A."
The widow Andress arose from the table with sudden decision. "My mind's made up," she said. "I'm fed up on the bright lights of Strathconna. It's a bit early to quit you, Uncle Ivan, but I'm going back to the ranch Monday.... And another thing is settled," she went on after a pause for breath, "the next time there's a raid from the States, I'm going to be in the saddle."
"If this ain't one hell of a post for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, may me next assignment be to grub all the worms in Alberta!"
Constable Mahaffy, beginning to be rotund and somewhat wrinkled in his permanently sun-reddened countenance, thought himself alone and was grumbling. This was a luxury in which he never would have indulged himself had he dreamed that Sergt. Jack, his O.C. for the day, month or year, was anywhere within hearing. But his ignorance was bliss, wherefore he continued to unburden his troubled soul to Poison, who feigned to listen and understand with all a hound's artistry.
"Why did they have to wish this on me?" Mahaffy asked the dog. "Me—me, Padraic Mahaffy, the fightingest policer of them great open spaces the writer-people talk about? Or do they call 'em open 'places'?" He growled at the dog and Poison, sympathetic canine, moaned in return.
"This here one sure is open enough," he went on with the hound's entire attention. "Not even a roof on the police house, and that a one-room shack with never a sign of a cell. And me playin' at bein' a carpenter. If I'd fallen for workin' with tools, I'd be over in them States makin' ten dollars a day. If I gets any more deals like this on', I'll buy out, be jabers, and I'll——"
From around the corner of the uncompleted cabin came Jack Childress. His appearance, unexpected, sent the one member of his detachment into complete silence.
The sergeant knew Padraic, one of a type of "Mounties" scattered through the Force, invaluable in their way, loyal, fearless in danger, but the sort of trooper who never would rise beyond lowly rank.
"So you're going to buy out, Paddy?" was his questioned greeting. "You're the last real man I'd have expected would leave a buddy cold."
"Don't mind me, Sarg," returned the crestfallen constable. "I was just amusin' the pup here. I'm one of the never-quits, even if I do beef about quittin' sometimes."
Childress was as easy going, when in command, as any N.C.O. in the service; he knew, liked and appreciated Paddy Mahaffy; in fact, he had asked to have that particular constable detailed to him on this Fire Weed case. But it seemed to him that the time had come for a bit of discipline.
"Just what, Pad, is the matter with this as a post of the Royal Mounted?" he demanded with a severity that the constable did not recognize as mock.
"In the first place, Sergeant——" began Mahaffy.
"This, right here, the 'Open A' Ranch of John Childress, Esq., is the first place," cut in the sergeant. "What's the matter with this as a post?"
Thus abruptly deprived of his beloved preambles, the constable literally was driven into the open.
"There's no roof on the post, for onct," he declared.
"And no rain in sight until September—why bother now with a roof? We may not be here when the rain comes."
The Irisher waggled his graying head. "An' as for that, where's there a sign of a uniform on me?"
"The overall and jumper becomes you, Padraic," insisted Childress. "You've got to show more cause than that to have your complaint considered."
"So, then, there's no Union Jack flyin', nor even a flag pole raised, and there's no letters whitewashed on rocks saying R.C.M.P., and I'm one of the finest whitewashers in the Scarlet."
"Can't you get the idea? This is a secret post—a mufti," Childress tried to explain. "We're under cover. Besides which, and moreover, what possible good could a uniform do you here on the Open A with not a woman in miles?"
The sergeant had put a question the constable might answer.
"Not a woman, is it?" he demanded. "How about the flame filly who's been hoverin' like a firefly about the edges ofourdamn fool ranchlet?"
Here was news to Childress, although he had strong suspicion regarding the identity of the constable's "flame filly." If Bernice Gallegher had been spying the small ranch, he had not even caught enough sight of her to know the color of the pony she rode.
"You never reported her," accused the sergeant, his tone more severe than he usually used to men under his command.
"Nothing to report," countered the rubicund Irisher. "She stayed on her own land, as you mapped it to me on arrival, just as the dinge stayed on hers."
"The dinge?"
"Oh, the black-haired beauty who lives to the east of us. There's been two of them females riding the fences which ain't on this peanut which you say belongs to the Mounted. I'll tell Commissioner Jim, if ever I get before him again, not to send anybody down here without the scarlet."
The sergeant felt no chagrin that he had not sighted the women riders. After making camp, he had taken two trips away to bring in the small stock of horses that was to lend color to his pretense of ranching. Then he had been busy with the construction of what eventually would be a tight little log cabin. Practically all of the patroling had been done by the constable in the three weeks the two had been on the ranch. Of course, Padraic should have reported both instances, even though there had been no trespass; but then one could not expect perfection from a man who always would be a constable because of the limitations birth had put upon him.
That Childress was personally interested either in the blonde or the brunette neighbor was a possibility that the sergeant cared not to admit even to himself. What had a "Mountie," even a staff-sergeant of the Force, to do with interest in women? The constable could have told him "nawthin'," even though he lived clean, had a tidy bit set by in one of the many branches of the Bank of Canada, and possessed a heart big as all outdoors. His lot was to see that the Dominion's police work was well done, wherever and however impossible such work might be.
So he let the belated report of this two-sided feminine inspection pass as a matter of small importance. But instead of going himself, he sent the constable in their spring wagon on a twenty-mile drive to the nearest railroad town for certain supplies of which they stood in need.
"And remember, Padraic, to forget that you've ever had any contact with the Royal Mounted," was the chief's parting instruction. "Don't admit even that you've ever been arrested by one of the Scarlet."
"That I niver have, and ye know the same!" bristled Mahaffy. "Me record's as clean as a hound's tooth. Are there any detachment of us at Beaver Ford?"
"No detachment. Maybe a constable on smuggling duty, but he'll be one of the new rookies and very much in uniform. Small chance of his recognizing an old alderbush like you. If you must talk, talk horse; you just might get a line on something. This case is something like a cat in that there's no telling which way the darned thing's going to jump."
To prove the sergeant right came another sample of the unexpected less than half an hour after Constable Padraic Mahaffy had driven away from the ranch. The gender of this surprise was feminine and burst, like the flame she was, around a corner of the cabin. Hammering at the task of fitting a mail-order window frame into an opening in the wall of the unroofed structure, Childress had not heard the soft pad-pad approach of her horse.
From his awkward position astride the window opening, he scrambled to a more comfortable one on the prairie turf, his whimsical, one-cornered smile offering greeting the while.
"Welcome to the Open A, Miss Gallegher," he cried with genuine heartiness, confident that having failed to place him that day in Strathconna she never would be able to do so here on his own ranch.
"To you belongs the distinction of being our first visitor. Drop rein on your cayuse and I'll see what I can supply in the way of a tea party."
Unless he had a poor memory for horseflesh, the so-called cayuse was the same bay that had gone lame crossing "Medicine Line" that first memorable moonlit evening.
"I came for no party—tea or otherwise," she said, her big freckle eyes bearing steadily upon him and never a trace of smile about the lips which knew no coloring but that of the health which comes from life in the open. "And this hawse is no cayuse," she continued, working backward on the items in his salutation. "Were I a bit more interested, I might be wondering if I really was your first visitor. What do you mean by 'Open A'?"
She wore to-day a riding suit of brownish stuff that toned with her uncovered hair as though by a painter's touch. She made no move to accept his invitation to alight, but with her question threw one youthful leg over the horn of her saddle and stared down at him, calculation admixed with interest. The sergeant recognized the worn riding boots that had shown beneath her black skirt that day in Strathconna. To-day, on the range, there was no skirt. After first glance in the great openness of the Fire Weed country, he was inclined to modify his earlier verdict that she "might have been prettier." She looked pretty enough out here on the prairie, hatless, with a complexion which, except for those provocative freckles, seemed to defy the down-blazing sun.
Childress was impressed, although he should not have been. Her refusal to drop rein and 'lite was a rebuff that approached insult in the etiquette of the Canadian West. However, he answered her question. "Open A is the name of my ranch."
The suggestion of cynicism, noted in town, that seemed so uncharacteristic, returned to her gentle lips and serious eyes.
"You've a nerve to call a single section a ranch," she declared. "But I was asking why the 'Open' and why the 'A'?"
The sergeant told himself that she was more a woman and less a girl than he had thought. He realized that there must be some object other than mere curiosity behind her visit. In several ways the discovery pleased him. With a child, even a child in breeches and perched provocatively upon a horse that was "not a cayuse," he must need be careful. Concerning a woman grown, he need be only polite.
"From the artistry with which you drape your own, I'd imagine you are saddle-wise to brands. 'Open A' happens to be mine. You might call it a 'V' turned upside down. And there probably are some who will say that it is appropriate, as this particular section of your scorn presents an open way to America—the States."
"And the brand itself is not so difficultly different from the Widow Andress' Rafter A," she said significantly. "In her brand the 'A' stands on its feet and has a peaked roof over it, which is more than your joke of a cabin boasts. A wise newcomer would have selected a less suggestive letter. I'm glad dad's brand is 'Lazy G,' even though it does seem to put us on our backs."
Her comment, which might be considered "range stuff" of the first order, was the first inkling that had come to him that his selection of a name for his property might be ill-considered. There was a possibility of brand-blotting between "Open A" and "Rafter A." Unlike as sounded the names when spoken, the plucking of some hair could lead to interesting possibilities. Already Flame Gallegher had grasped this fact, it seemed.
Already she was suspicious, but not, love the King! along the line of his real identity which must have disclosed, prematurely, the reason for his being in Fire Weed.
"Meaning just what—your 'brand not so difficultly different'?" he demanded in self-defence.
"Meaning that I rode in here to-day to give you one last warning," she returned, the freckle-eyes flashing, as her long, slim fingers threw back her flagrant hair.
"You've heard of brand-blotting," she went on. "Well, the boys of the range have figured out several brands that could, with skill, be blotted into your 'Open A.' It's evident that you don't mean to settle down as a granger; that you can make a living here raising stock on a single section is an obvious impossibility. The answer seems plain."
"To you?" he asked with a sudden show of concern. His interest was growing in this vivid young witch of the Fire Weed whose nose was bridged with freckles and whose verbal fire was as straight as the leaden one of his own Colts. He disliked the idea that she should think him a horse thief, even though that rôle was behind his taking root on the little gateway ranch. And how much easier the situation must have become had he dared remind her that once, not long since, he first had met her fleeing a horse-thief charge!
The girl did not answer at once. But there was a rather cynical twist to her lips as she arranged herself into a more comfortable seat on her over-large stock saddle.
"It don't matter what Flame Gallegher thinks," she remarked with more deliberation than was her wont. "I'll confess to an honest-to-goodness liking for you, Mr. Childress. Not one of those first-sight affairs, but just a man-to-man regard that——" She broke off suddenly. The suggestion of cynicism, that seemed so uncharacteristic, was forced back to her gentle lips and serious eyes. "Hell's bells!" she chided herself. "I'm getting kittenish in my old age. What I came to tell you and what I now do tell you, so help me God, is that if you or any one else cares a darn for the integrity of your hide, stranger, you'd better get it out of here. The boys have made up their mind to 'liminate you. And that's the warning I came to deliver. Take it or leave it."
He was forced to smile at her "in my old age" remark. If she "aged" more than twenty-two he was a poor guesser. As for being "kittenish," he almost wished she had been.
"They sent you—the eliminating boys?" he asked.
"I'm not the sort to be sent, as you'd realize if you weren't such a greener with women."
"Then what's the real motive behind to-day's overture? Greener that I am, I'll venture realizing that you did not do it as a trick to get me off this section. And I'm not conceited enough to hope that you rode here out of pity for me. Then—why the warning?"
"You're right on a couple of counts," she slashed back. "I'd not have bothered had it been only your beating me out by a nose at the railroad land-office. And there isn't a reason in the world why I should bother about you. But my father——"
"So, your father——"
"Can't abide rustlers or the suspicion of the same," she went on with more warmth than had heated her earlier speech. "He's more hot-headed than his daughter. Liable to shoot somebody and get himself nearly shot-up or in trouble with those pesky Mounted Police. I don't want him to need standing trial if a warning in time can eliminate trouble. I wish you'd mount your wonder horse and ride right out of the picture. If our outfit don't get you, the Rafter A will. They're riding herd on you, as close as we are. I've seen it myself. You haven't a chance to get away with anything less than murder, and you don't look exactly like a—a——"
He smiled at her that whimsical grin that had carried him in and out of so many tight holes. At last he was positively sure that she had not connected him with the Scarlet of that border night when she had disobeyed his gruff orders so flagrantly. It was "the man of it" that he couldn't look behind the woman mask and know the truth. As for himself he might have made anonymity's riffle—but how did he expect to get away unremembered with a horse like Silver and Poison, the dog? "Go on and say it—I don't look like a murderer," he urged. "You can't realize how you've disappointed me in having only a filial object for this visit. I'll think over the warning and ride to report after due consideration."
"At your own risk if that horse of yours ever puts hoof on the Gallegher Ranch!" she exclaimed.
If the prairie had not been dustless, he could not have seen her for "smoke."
The Ethel Andress who rode this spring afternoon over the rolling prairie west of Witch River and the Rafter A home ranch was decidedly a different-looking being from the one who had romped headlong over the Whitefoot reservation a few weeks earlier into John Childress's rescue clutch. Her mount was a gaited mustang, vividly piebald in black and white, but scrubby in comparison with Princess, the sorrel thoroughbred, who remained in the stables back of the Strathconna town house. The English saddle which had won the sergeant's condemnation, had been supplanted by a seat of the "cow" variety.
Her black hair, which on that other occasion had streamed outrageously, to-day was concealed under a big, face-shading hat. Instead of a riding habit of the fashionable cut known to Ottawa tailors, she wore short-wool chaps over khaki breeches that clung to her knees and ballooned at her surprisingly shapely hips. A shirt of blue flannel, decorated with pearl buttons, and a loosely knotted silk neckerchief completed her costume.
Although at open-country running, the piebald mustang could have given fair Princess an even break, the young woman was satisfied to have the wiry little beast jog along at a fox trot, that easiest of gaits, which both rider and horse can endure for hours without fatigue. The widow had no definite destination and the easy pace suited her mood, which was one of mental readjustment.
What was she going to do with and about Tom Fitzrapp?
Since their sudden return to the ranch from Strathconna there had been several happenings. One had to do with further loss to the rustlers, duly reported to the fair owner after Fitzrapp's return from his first inspection ride over the lower ranch of the several that made up the Rafter holdings.
"How deep did they gouge us this time?" she had asked.
"Without making a count, I say in the neighborhood of fifty head," Fitzrapp had returned despondently. "But I nearly got them this time."
He had tossed his flat-brimmed felt hat to the girl. Through the peaked crown of it a rifle bullet had bored a hole.
"If it had been an inch lower——" he had started on.
But she had held the far-away look in her dark eyes and continued gazing out over the valley. Too many times it had been nearly or almost. And Fitzrapp had reported too many narrow escapes.
The explosion had come later—the next morning. The handsome ranch manager had renewed his importunities that she forsake widowhood and become Mrs. Fitzrapp. When she had shown small—possibly less than usual—interest in his protestations of devotion, he had gone off in a huff to the corrals. At luncheon, for the Rafter A was the one ranch in the Fire Weed country at which dinner was served at night, he suggested an intention of running up to Strathconna for a horse race in which he was interested.
"If you go now, Tom," she had said, "you needn't bother coming back. I'd hate to see you killed on our range and, from past experiences, they seem more likely to get you than you to get any of them. Why don't you bring down a rustler now and then?"
Her uncle had been quick to Fitzrapp's defence. Rifles had a certain range of fire, and Tom never had been near enough, any more than had any of the rest of the outfit. She had better let him have a few days off and come back primed for the next raid.
But Fitzrapp had seen the danger flash in his employer's eyes. He had voiced a quiet, white-faced decision to remain on the range. Without the use of words, which would have been useless at the moment, he tried to tell her with his eyes that he was remaining to redeem himself.
As the piebald hoofed the prairie, up one roll of sward and down another, across a patch of the worthless fire weed from which the region took its name and over a more bountiful one of buffalo and grama grasses which made it valuable for grazing, Ethel Andress pondered a plan of her own. She had ridden many a mile working it out on other days. This plan in short was to bait the lower range—that nearest the international border—with her finest stock, enlist a band of gun-fighters, and, with herself in command, await the raid that she was certain would follow. The more she thought of this baited-trap idea the better she liked it.
But the particular object of her present sortie on horseback was that she might make up her mind regarding one Thomas Fitzrapp. For years, since childhood, in fact, it had been her habit to take to the saddle and the open range when serious problems of life required adjustment. It was on one such wild ride that she had decided to link her fortunes with Cliff Andress, only to have him respond to the Empire's call so soon afterward that she could scarcely realize they ever had been married. And almost as soon as he could cross the Atlantic, do a bit of training in England and get over to Flanders, she had found herself a widow.
There seemed no doubt about Fitzrapp's interest. It had been as gentle as a mother's in the first tragic days. Once taken on to manage the ranch he had behaved beyond question until the raids on the Rafter A beauties began. Since, she had wondered why he always got shot at and never seemed to shoot back, just as she could not understand why Fitzrapp, graduate of Sandhurst, had been unable to see service when every able-bodied citizen in Canada was up and ready to go. True, he had done excellent work training recruits at one of the big camps outside Quebec, but—— There was that big BUT!
Ethel had just been emerging from widowhood at the time of his arrival on the ranch which she had been forced to take over. At once he had become an admirer. This devotion had endured and strengthened with the years, so that, although she often laughed at it, she had grown to rely upon it as well as to feel flattered about it.
A man of Fitzrapp's education and experience was rare in her social life. His easy manner gave him an appeal that other men of her somewhat limited acquaintance lacked. Although not positively handsome, as was her uncle, considering his age, Thomas Fitzrapp had a commanding presence, and expressive, deep-set brown eyes. Growing into womanhood, she had become more certain of her admirer's personal value, and, by comparison with other men, found in him graces that compelled her appreciative consideration.
Under the circumstances Blackandwhite, the cayuse, was left largely to his own devices, which, in this instance, considered only setting his own pace and "boxing" his own compass. The widow, concerned with her mental inquest on the suitor who had disappointed about the raid, continued that investigation of herself and of him.
Certainly Tom Fitzrapp always had been most kind to her; tolerant of her whims, which she knew had been many; considerate of her feelings, which were not near the surface, and respectful toward her opinions, which were decided.
The pronounced fault of jealousy which Fitzrapp lately had developed pleased more than it annoyed her. When brought to task for this, he always assured her that it would disappear once she had given him an affirmative answer to his persisting question. But this answer she postponed, keeping him in the equivocal position of being neither refused nor accepted. Most men would have considered this treatment unfair. Under the circumstances, she was impressed by his personal optimism.
On various counts in the past she had been impatient with Tom Fitzrapp, but these had been trivial. This afternoon she could not be cheerful, feeling a real disappointment—the disappointment that had forced her drastic action of "either go to your horse race in Strathconna and don't come back, or stay here and help capture these pesky bandits."
Still rankled in her mind the ranch manager's lack of courage in this latest brush with the rustlers. It would have required more than a bullet hole in her hat to stop the widow, had she found herself within gun range of the thieves. Had Tom come home with a broken shoulder, or even a clipped ear, her temper would have been more tolerant. As it was he was nearly out of the ranch romance, so far as she was concerned.
Just then the piebald took a hand—just as she was about to tell all the Fire Weed world what she thought of Mr. Thomas Fitzrapp. The horse stopped and pawed the ground with his right forefoot, as if the shoe hurt him, then turned around in inquiry.
"My goodness, hawse, I believe you've an inkling what I've been thinking about all this ride. What's the answer?"
Ethel Andress looked into the horse's eyes, but saw that they held no fear, although she knew that the eyes of a horse reflect more of alarm than do those of a dog when alarm there is. "What do you want me to look at?" she asked the beast companionably.
The answer was down in the cup of the hills—that most beautiful stallion she ever had seen. Her filly had told her something and something she was not ready to meet. But the decision was taken out of her hands. The silver beast had issued his call and there was no human woman powerful enough to keep the equine twain apart. Ethel knew when she had lost control of her mount and this time she had. Eventually the piebald would descend into the cup, carrying her to a second meeting with the mysterious man from the States, that is unless he had sold the pride and joy of his heart.
But for the moment she was able to postpone the descent. She realized that she had ridden across the range and to the edge of the low bluff upon which the railroad surveyors had put their brand and where any time now the wire fences of settlers might be found. Anything but a happy thought—settlers and wire fences—to a stock woman!
Looking down at the foot of the bluff, she made a startling discovery. Settlers must have come already! Else what was the meaning of that rough log shelter that was rising just below her stand on the bank of a small creek; of the canvas corral and the presence of a small band of horses grazing as peacefully as though they were at home there? Nothing of the sort had she noticed on her previous rides that Spring about the edge of the cup.
"Looks like the end of the range," she predicted dismally. And to think that the rescuer who had intrigued her, the handsome and strangely reserved American should lead the invasion so long predicted by her own uncle and echoed by the gentleman who had been her husband!
She looked again at the animal picketed near the half-complete cabin. Undoubtedly it was the silver stallion she had ridden in her final spurt to be first at the death of the coyote hunt. There was no mistaking the neck arching gracefully from oblique shoulders, the superb carriage of the head without breaking the line of curvature from withers to foretop; the round barrel that carried full back to the hips, and the full sweep of the high-carried tail. She looked with eyes trained to equine appraisal, and had not the slightest doubt of her recognition.
Two men left the unroofed cabin as she watched, and walked toward the corral, the smaller carrying a saddle and bridle. The taller one, who walked with a long stride and played with the loop of his rope she saw at a glance was Childress who should have been anywhere else but there on the border range, unless——
Remembrance gripped her. Fitzrapp had seen him in Strathconna with Flame Gallegher. This cup which he seemed to have occupied, was a buffer between the Rafter A and the Gallegher ranch. What was the connection? Tom suspected the owner of the silver horse to be leader of the rustlers; could it be possible that the Galleghers were concerned in the stealing and that the man who called himself Childress was there at Gallegher instigation? Until that moment she had held Fitzrapp's reiterated suspicions as groundless and merely an outgrowth of his own jealousy. Was it possible that Tom was right and that this upstanding young American who said he had come from Montana really was the head of the rustling band? If so, he could scarcely have found a likelier place as a base of operations.
Claim to a ranchhold there would be a reasonable excuse for his presence on the range; the location offered every opportunity for spying on the Rafter horse bands and a ready refuge in case raiding plans miscarried. What a discovery she had stumbled upon! And what fools they had been, they of the Rafter outfit, not to have learned that this particular section was open to purchase from the railroad people!
Ethel watched the men as they crossed to the corral, her mind still busy with this new problem. She knew that a canvas corral was impenetrable to the most obstinate outlaw, and was the best fence for breaking purposes. Even before the pair entered the enclosure, she suspected what was on hand—that the roan beast, moving so restlessly inside, was going to feel saddle girths, possibly for the first time.
Mrs. Andress was in doubt as to her immediate course. Had she been convinced that Childress was the rustler Fitzrapp believed him to be, she would have hurried away to round up her outfit and give the battle in which she longed to be a participant. But she had no proof of his guilt, and could take no definite action on mere suspicion.
Then she remembered Childress's frank-looking eyes and his resourcefulness when he thought her in danger that morning on the Indian reservation, and she knew that she was far from convinced. Horse-thieves might not look the part, as the men of Rafter A agreed, but she felt that Childress could not act such a rôle. A desire to see him and talk to him grew upon her, and finally won her decision. She'd yield to the filly, which probably would have thrown her and gone for a visit to the silver beast whether or no.
She would ride down to the canvas corral, and if the stranger confirmed her first impression, she would warn him of the danger that hung over anyone under suspicion in the vicinity of the Fire Weed range. Indeed, she was not certain but that she would warn him of peril in any event. If he was a rustler, and she succeeded in frightening him away, the result would be the same as though she and her outfit fought him off. Danger would be spared them both, and she felt that she owed him something for his intentions up at Whitefoot.
For just a moment she wavered, remembering what Fitzrapp had reported seeing at the Chateau Royal. She had no love to lose for the Gallegher girl. But she banished the thought as utterly outside the question, so far as she was concerned. She would warn him; but first, from this reserved seat on the bald bluff, after restraining her mount, she would see how he handled a recalcitrant horse.
Both Childress and the man with him entered the corral, crawling under the canvas without regard for dignity. The rope fell true at first cast, and the roan was soon in hand and blindfolded for the saddling, which was accomplished without throwing, despite vigorous protests from the animal.
The widow could see that the horse was of mixed breed, which is likely to produce the worst buckers. It was evident, too, that he had been saddled before, so that it was safe to set him down as an outlaw who would not stay "broke." It was exactly the sort of proposition a man of Childress' daring and strength would enjoy tackling, thought Ethel, as she quieted the filly and settled back into her comfortable saddle to watch every move in the battle for supremacy which she felt certain would be worth while.
The roan snorted a note of defiance as Childress on the nigh side, hung his stirrup for a quick mount.
The widow saw him run his hand over the saddle, give the cloth a tug to assure himself that it was well set, and pull the cinch a couple of holes tighter for luck. The horse stood still, his hind legs well under him, his head, with ears flattened, sinking lower and lower, his tail between his legs.
Seizing the checkstraps of the bridle in his left hand, and taking a firm grip upon the pommel with his right, Childress thrust his boot into the iron stirrup and swung easily to the saddle. They were off, quite as though the outlaw had been a trained actor and had heard his cue.
Squealing and bawling like a mad thing, the horse made a frantic rush for the far side of the corral, pounding the hard ground with his hoofs. As the stretch of canvas loomed up before his eyes, a more impenetrable barrier than a stockade of wood, the beast pulled up with a stop that must have thrown a less expert rider. There followed a spasm of twisting, turning, and bucking in circles, through which the man remained seated, as though a leather part of the ponderous saddle.
"That nag's a sunfisher!" Ethel murmured, as the bronco repeatedly leaped into the air, trying to twist his rider from his back. "And that man Childress is some rider!" His horsemanship was superb.
A cry of alarm escaped her lips as the horse, maddened by the failure of his previous efforts, deliberately reared and threw himself down backward. But her concern for Childress' safety proved uncalled for. At exactly the right second he slipped from under, saving himself, evidently, from even a bruise. As the surprised horse scrambled to his feet, the man flung himself back into the saddle, where he sat prepared for the next series.
Then, after several minutes of further fighting, Ethel saw Childress go hurdling over the roan's head, but only to land on his feet a dozen yards in front. She knew by the ease with which he alighted that he had not been thrown actually, but used a trick of dismounting known to the most skilled "busters," usually resorted to when the rider is tired and the outlaw not yet unwound.
"Whatever else you may be, John Childress," she commented to herself, "you are certainly a past master of busting a bronc!"
She gave the restless pony rein and sat her with skill on a slide down the slanting face of the bluff. Cantering across the meadow toward the corral, she pulled up outside the canvas before Childress was aware of her approach.
"May I congratulate you on a most finished performance, Mr. Childress?" she called.
One amazed glance brought recognition, and he strode across the corral toward her.
She had a moment to study him in the undress of range garb. His silk neckerchief hung like a bib over his gray shirt; a strap supported his corduroy trousers; and these, in turn, tucked into boots with high heels and short vamps. His head wore no covering. First the lower part of his face held her attention, its determined chin and elongated upper lip, with no red showing, striking her as unusual. She realized now that she had not really looked at the man that day on the reservation. But, as he drew nearer, his eyes held her, eyes full of merriment; while the smile on his face bespoke a welcome that she scarcely had expected.
"A sure-enough surprise, Mrs. Andress," he said, as he neared the canvas wall. "Wasn't expecting company this afternoon, so you'll have to excuse the workaday rig. I've been some engaged these last few minutes. Have you been here long?"
"I watched your—your engagement from the bluff yonder," the widow returned with an over-shoulder gesture. "What did you think you were doing? Not going into the Wild West show business, I hope?"
"I was trying to convince that young tornado over there that he just thinks he's an outlaw." Childress broadened his smile. "But he seems to have a single-track mind, and it's going to take several treatments."
Neglecting to leave the corral as he had entered, crawling, the sergeant walked slowly toward the gate, the widow on the pony keeping pace with him outside.
"Our trails seem bound to cross in unexpected places," she observed by way of giving him an opening. "I was sorry that you could not accept my uncle's invitation to dine with us in Strathconna."
"Acceptance happened to be impossible," said he quickly. "I was sorry not to have seen you again, but there were compensations."
"The Gallegher brat," thought the widow, but said not a word.
"I had hoped to run across you people down here, but scarcely so soon," he went on. "I've just driven in."
So he was aware of the fact that he was on the edge of the Rafter A range, thought Ethel. And he had hoped to run across them! If this stranger was what Tom Fitzrapp suspected, certainly he was brazen enough.
She decided further probe would be advisable. "Do you expect to camp here long?" she asked.
Childress smiled at her over the improvised gate. "I'm not camping, Mrs. Andress, though it may look that way. This is my ranch—six hundred and forty acres—so long as I keep my contract with the railroad, and I reckon I'll be able to keep it unless the bottom falls out of the horse market."
Her eyes widened with surprise at this statement. "You're going to become a Canadian?"
Childress could not tell her that he was Canadian born, any more than he could explain his lack of uniform. He was there in the Fire Weed country particularly to solve her losses of stock, although other breeders had lost in lesser degree. She was the sort of woman to whom a real man does not care to lie. There was a "white" way out.
"Possibly I can make a go of this proposition," he answered, ignoring the question of nationality. "You've heard of the rolling stone and its lack of moss. Well, I've proven to my own satisfaction that there is truth in the adage. At least temporarily, I've quit hitting strange trails."
Looking across the canvas into the corral, Ethel noticed that the other man who was short and stout and wore a bristling red mustache, had unsaddled the roan and was in the act of crawling under the improvised fence on the opposite side.
"Who's that?" she asked with a gesture a trifle disdainful.
Childress looked, saw the effort to escape, and suppressed a chuckle. "That's Padraic Mahaffy, my outfit. He's sort of woman-shy, which accounts for the get-away."
The widow felt her suspicions returning. Under all the circumstances, the wrangler might have another reason for being shy of any one from the Rafter A.
"You're a bit shy yourself, aren't you?" she asked. "I remember that although my uncle offered you the choice of evenings that time, in Strathconna, you were not in the least hungry."
"That situation was beyond my control—my small experience with women had nothing to do with refusing to dine with you. And right now, won't you dismount and rest a bit? I can't offer much in the way of hospitality, but such as we have is yours."
"I'm quite comfortable in the saddle, thank you, and I have but a moment," she said. "Do you think, Mr. Childress, that you've done wisely settling in this particular basin? There is no open range near here, and——"
"Oh, I'm going in for intensified breeding," said Childress, as Ethel paused, "if I may use an adjective which the farmer seems to have preempted. I'll fence in my section presently and attempt only the raising and training of thoroughbreds. There's still a good market for the right sort of horses on both sides of the line."
"But I was speaking of this particular section," she continued gravely. "You know the situation here—the trouble we've been having on Fire Weed range."
"With the rustlers?" he suggested.
She affirmed with a nod and had a thought of admiration for his cool manner under her significant gaze.
"They had better not trouble me," he declared, his lean face going suddenly grave. "I have the advantage over range breeding and grazing. Here, my stock will be always under my eye, and there'll be no stampeding it without my knowledge. If the rustlers persist in coming—well, Mrs. Andress, a man has the right to protect his own property, even to the extent of drawing a gun and using it. You wouldn't hesitate, yourself, would you?"
Either this was pure effrontery, coupled with finished acting, or it was the speech of an honest man. The widow was unable to determine which, but either, it left her more eager to warn him. If he was a rustler chief, she would serve her own interests could she persuade him to leave the vantage point of the ranch in the basin. If he was innocent, she would repay her small debt to him by warning him of a danger which he doubtless underestimated.
At that moment old Poison came bounding up to them, evidently returned from some hunting expedition of his own. She envied the hound the confidence he was able to throw into his greeting and the honest affection with which he attempted to paw his master. Then the dog turned his attention to her, evidently fixing her identity with one preliminary sniff. He essayed to lick her hand with a series of eager leaps which set the mustang cavorting and stamping her feet.
"Down, you old pest!" Childress ordered. "Down, I say! Go over and tell Mahaffy to spare you some of his feminine shyness."
The dog seemed to understand. At any rate, he started off on a run, seeking the wrangler, who could be seen some distance up the creek.
"Poison seems to remember me, even though our meeting was single and brief," said Mrs. Andress.
"He does," returned Childress, smiling, "and he has a wonderful talent for forgetting people he don't like."
In the face of these pleasantries, it was not easy to return to the subject uppermost in her mind, but she forced herself to do so. "I was thinking rather of the danger to yourself than of the loss of your stock. I suffered another raid within the week. My uncle and Mr. Fitzrapp, my ranch manager, are greatly aroused and intent upon extreme measures. Naturally, any stranger in this section comes under suspicion. If by any chance indiscretion"—for some reason she found herself stating the situation more delicately than she had intended—"if you should be found in any position that was considered incriminating, I hate to think what might happen. I wish you hadn't come here, for really it is not safe. Won't you drive on—make wagon tracks to some other location?"
He was gazing at her in seeming incredulity. "Your uncle will scarcely suspect me, Mrs. Andress."
"But already you are suspected!" she cried. "You and your silver stallion there. In most of the raids such a horse has figured, and there is not a doubt but that the rustlers came from across the border. I don't want to see more trouble started, but there surely will be more if Mr. Fitzrapp learns that you have camped here."
"Oh, Tom Fitzrapp!" The exclamation seemed to escape from reluctant lips and not without a tinge of scorn.
His eyes were directed toward the ground now. His whole attitude was one of consideration. But this lasted only for a moment. His confident, attractive smile was again on his face when he looked up at her. Before he spoke, she knew that her persuasive effort had been in vain.
"It's mighty good of you to ride over and tell me this," he said, "but I reckon I'll have to stick it out. I've been suspected before—that is, deeds that were not pleasant to consider have been attributed to me, and on stronger circumstantial evidence than the ownership of a gray stallion. However, I have an equity in this land, the first I've ever owned, and I hope I know how to defend my own. I want to stay here, Mrs. Andress; I want to help clear the Fire Weed of rustlers. I had in mind making you folks a call and establishing neighborly relations, but from what you say the effort would be useless. You are welcome here at any time, and so is your uncle. If you need an extra gun, you've only to call for the best action I can get out of mine. Perhaps the day will come when—when we can all be friends."
His manner was at once hesitating and hopeful.
The widow felt a return of her former perplexity regarding the man. Fitzrapp suspected him, and here he was, neatly holed in with the skeleton of a horse band on the edge of their range, and here he said he intended to stay. Appearances certainly were against him and corrective action seemed beyond her power. If he was the rustler chief, his safety lay in Fitzrapp's timidity—his fear to get within target range. She hoped that it would not fall to her lot, suspicion against John Childress verified, to have to bring him down with her own gun. That he'd be very careful not to shoot a woman she felt convinced. That was his handicap and an added reason why he should have accepted warning.
She gathered up the reins and turned her piebald. "Remember that I told you the danger of remaining," she said quietly. "I've miles to ride and must be off."
"Sorry you should consider a warning necessary," he returned. "Life down here in Fire Weed may not be as dull as one might suspect from the stage setting. But I'm grateful for your notice-to-leave, even though I must disregard it. Good-by."
When Ethel Andress gained the top of the bluff, she looked back and saw him engaged in some sort of a rough-and-tumble game with Poison. Evidently as a bugaboo she was a decided failure. Anyway, she had done her best, and they were quits.
As she gave the pony his head for the home ranch, she did not notice a mounted figure that emerged from a thicket farther up the bluff and started on a circular course in the same general direction. The question of honesty set aside, her mind became engaged in a comparison of the two men most in her thoughts. It had been hard to choose the man whose name she wore. This second choice, which now seemed just around the corner, promised to be more difficult. "Why," she asked herself—"why do they put such a weight of weeds on widows?" Then she remembered that report of Fitzrapp's about Childress' meeting with the "Gallegher brat" and felt somewhat cheered. This horse thief suspect wasn't worth any woman's worry.
The range was a study in green and yellow this day that Sergeant Jack Childress set out, despite warning, to ride to the home of the Flame. The visit was part of the program he had mapped for himself—an intensive and personal study of all resident ranchers in the hope that something might "drop" to show collusion, if such existed, in the mystery of the "lifted" horse bands. Silver, the magnificent, snorted at part of the going, that which lay through the weed no animal is known to eat, even under the most pressing conditions.
Of this little green plant there was enough in evidence to give name to the range, but it served rather as a frame to rich growths of buffalo and other grasses. Had it been everywhere, the stockmen would have foraged somewhere else.
Other names has this parasite—snakeweed, turpentine weed and, to the scientist,Guttierrazia. It generally grows to a height of ten inches, and is a bushy plant with small yellow flowers, never red ones. The colorful name of fireweed comes from the fact that in the winter the plant dries and the flowers bear little white seeds filled with a resinous substance which makes it burn like tinder.
With eyes accustomed to the wonders of the sub-Arctic, the "bark" of sun dogs and the colorful sheen of Northern Lights, the "Mountie" paid little attention to this comparatively drab scenery. He did make note that he was near the undrawn line which, with occasional "monuments" of stone, marks the boundary between the Dominion and the States. It occurred to him as strange that the fireweed stopped on the side of the beaver and that the timber began on the leagues of the eagle. He had foraged into that American forest for logs with which to build the walls of the shack that Mahaffy resented as no post for even a sergeant-constable detachment of the Royal Mounted. And he realized the possibilities of concealment and cover that lay among the pines for the pestiferous stock-raiding gang. He intended to go there again and for more than timber, unless the rustlers earlier came to him. But he was not hurrying that or any other detail of this run-'em-down game to which he had been particularly assigned. Hurried raids on both sides of the border had in the past failed signally, netted no prisoners and stopped not a drop of the leakage from Canadian ranches. His plan of campaign was slow in its tempo, but he hoped it would be sure. That it might be dangerous to the official pair engaged in it was not worth consideration; assignments in the service which were not dangerous were hopelessly monotonous, as he well could testify.
On the farther side of a long roll of prairie, he rode into a marshy section unusual to the region. It was one that would have required the services of "bog riders," from March until the end of May when cows are weak, had the range been devoted to cattle. But the sergeant was sure that he was on the Gallegher ranch which, like the Rafter A, specialized in horses whose sense of danger is so acute as to make it unnecessary to guard them from quicksand danger. It was with surprise, therefore, that he sighted presently a lone puncher trying to drag a bogged-down cow to safety. With the idea of aiding the Samaritan of the Plains, he changed his course and put Silver into a gallop.
While still some distance away he recognized the bog-rider as Flame Gallegher, and on approach saw that she had her rope around a situation that was somewhat beyond her.
"Hold up a moment, Miss Gallegher," he called. "You'll break that cow's neck before you get her out that way."
Evidently she had been so intent upon her rescue work that she had not heard the approach, the stallion's hoofs padding softly upon the buffalo turf. She checked her cayuse and looked up, flushing vividly on recognition.
"You!" she cried. "You and the silver beast riding our range in broad daylight?"
"Why not?" he asked. "My visit is friendly enough. Merely a get-acquainted call upon your father."
"But I warned you not——" she began.
Childress ignored her frown. "Let's see what we have here. Perhaps the committee of two from the Open A can help along your work of mercy."
Evidently the cow had gone into the quicksand bog to drink, burdened herself with several gallons of water and found her feet fast in the grip of the sand. She was well down and thoroughly frightened, the suction holding the feet as if in a vise. The girl had her rope about the beast's horns, with the other end attached to saddle horn. She was attempting salvage by a straight-pull method, but so far with nothing more in the way of success than bellows of pain from the bogged one.
"She's in a bad way," said the sergeant with experience as his authority. "I'll have to go in after the beast."
He dismounted, dropping rein on Silver. Squatting on the solid prairie that edged the bog, he unlaced his boots and rolled his trousers above his knees. This last process was applied to the sleeves of his flannel shirt.
"I don't suppose you carry a shovel," he remarked. "All bog-riders should."
"I'm not a bog-rider," she flared. "I was out gunning for horse thieves and happened on this poor critter. She happens to wear my own personal and private brand—Circle G—but I'd have tried to save her even had she worn an Open A."
Childress shrugged competent shoulders. "So, Flame of Fire Weed is also humane," he remarked, offering her again that whimsical smile that invited her own lips even as she resented the assurance of it.
"Did you imagine for a moment I wasn't human?" she demanded indignantly.
"I merely remarked yourhumaneness," he said to set himself right with her, and he started to wade into the bog.
"Have a care, man!" she cried. "Some of these bogs are sure enough sink-holes. They'll swallow people as well as cattle. This fool cow isn't worth the risk. Besides, I haven't another rope to put around your neck."
"Glad you didn't say 'horns,' Miss Flame. Although I'll guess you're not certain that I don't deserve a rope around me—my neck. Your interest in me shows that I should have said that the lady was merciful. Don't worry. I'm only going to dig out and loosen her forefeet with my hands; then I'll lift and boost while you and the cayuse pull on the rope. Perhaps, between us, we can work her to the bank."
The task of mercy to which he had assigned himself was hard and disagreeable, but he persisted. And the Fire Flame girl lent expert aid in her management of her mount. Between them, they did drag the "fool cow" to firm ground. There, Childress tailed her up and got her to her feet, too dazed from her experience even to bellow her resentment for treatment that she did not understand.
"Bet she does not live to raise her calf," remarked the girl owner of the bovine in question.
"One out of five does," was all the reassurance Childress could offer. "Maybe she's the lucky fifth."
Flame Gallegher nodded her agreement with this adage of the range. "Bog-riding isn't profitable to us cowmen," she said, "but it seems too dreadful to let them die in the water without at least trying to do something for them. I'm greatly obliged, Mr. Childress. Never could have dragged her out without help."