"Can she ride, Chief? I want to know! Can she ride! Steve is scared, ma'am. There's a lot of strangers snooping round and he——"
"Where have you been, Jerry?" Courtlandt had recovered his voice.
"Don't beat me, Steve!" Patches was loping along between Blue Devil and Gerrish's big sorrel. Encouraged by the foreman's quickly suppressed "Haw-haw" at her pleasantry, she went on, "I've been to Bear Creek ranch for tea."
"To the B C alone?"
"Do I look as though I carried concealed escorts?" with tormenting charm. "I had an acute attack of conscience. It occurred to me that I had been something of a heathen to ignore little Mrs. Carey, though I didn't know that she was little when I went. I only knew what Sandy had told me, that there was a woman at Bear Creek hungering for someone of her own sex to talk to."
"You are to be commended more for your conscience than your common sense," retorted Courtlandt dryly. "Don't do it again." They reached the ranch-house steps as he spoke. He slipped to the ground and before Jerry could protest had lifted her from the saddle. She felt the muscles of his arms twitch in the second he held her. Before she could speak he had gathered up the bridles of the horses and started for the corral. The brown depths of the girl's eyes were troubled as she looked after him. What menaced the good-comradeship which their arrival at the Double O had established between herself and Steve? Now he reminded her of a wary foe thrusting and retreating on the slightest pretext. What could she have done to change him so? She looked up at Gerrish, a puzzled question in her eyes. He shook his head as his met them.
"We mustn't mind if the Chief does act a little locoed, ma'am. He's walkin' right into trouble. It's Ranlett the Skunk, saving your presence. Somebody's cayuse got rid of some hobbles when the fence was cut where the Double O and the X Y Z join, and a bunch of calves has disappeared. There ain't hide nor hair of 'em to be seen. But, shucks, don't tell the Chief I told you. I'll mosey 'long now."
Jerry looked after him with narrowed eyes. "Where the Double O and the X Y Z join," Pete had said. That was where Bear Creek ranch came in! Like a movie close-up came a vision of the solitary horseman she had hailed, the man who had dropped from the air, who never talked about himself or his people, who never received letters, the Man of Mystery.