"That's very good of you," Chetwood acknowledged. "I'll move my traps out to-morrow."
CHAPTER XIX
INTRODUCING MRS. FOLEY
That spring, as soon as the frost was out of the ground, Angus did his promised work for Faith Winton, while a couple of carpenters ran up a cottage, stable and outbuilding. With this extra work, Angus was more than busy. The Frenches did nothing to help. They seemed to regard the girl's actions as folly of which the sooner she was cured the better.
"I am getting a companion, an old friend of mine," Faith told Angus one day as the cottage neared completion. "It may be cowardly, but I don't want to live here alone."
"Of course it would be lonesome," he agreed. "It will be nice for you to have a girl friend."
She stared at him for a moment and laughed. "Oh, very nice. We'll move in some time next week."
A week passed and another, and Angus, though he had heard that the new ranch was occupied, had had no opportunity to visit it. Then one evening he saddled Chief and rode over.
He saw smoke rising from the chimney, and when he dismounted and ascended the steps he heard a strange swishing and thumping, accompanied by a melancholy moaning which put him in mind of a dog scratching a sore ear. Wondering what on earth the racket was about, he knocked.