He was short and stocky, and undeniably Irish. He was far past middle age, as his gray hair and seamed wrinkles of his face indicated; but there was the light of a youthful spirit and good-nature in his eyes that squinted at the girl with a quizzical interest.
With the bridle-rein in the crook of his elbow and his hat in his hand, he bowed elaborately to the girl.
“Would ye be Miss Harlan, ma’am?” he asked.
“Yes,” she breathed, her face alight with eagerness, for now since the man had spoken her name the presentiment of news grew stronger.
The man’s face flashed into a wide, delighted grin and he reached out a hand, into which she placed one of hers, hardly knowing that she did it.
“Me name’s Ben Mullarky, ma’am. I’ve got a little shack down on the Rabbit-Ear—which is a crick, for all the name some locoed ignoramus give it. You c’ud see the shack from here, ma’am—if ye’d look sharp.”
He pointed out a spot to her—a wooded section far out in the big level country southward, beside the river—and she saw the roof of a building near the edge of the timber.
“That’s me shack,” offered Mullarky. “Me ol’ woman an’ meself owns her—an’ a quarter-section—all proved. We call it seven miles from the shack to Dawes. That’d make it about three from here.”
“Yes, yes,” said the girl eagerly.
He grinned at her. “Comin’ in to town this mornin’ for some knickknacks for me ol’ woman, I hear from Coleman—who keeps a store—that there’s a fine-lookin’ girl named Harlan searchin’ the country for news of her father, Larry Harlan. I knowed him, ma’am.”