The girl flashed a swift sidelong glance at me, and I feared my countenance was too wooden to be natural. "I am sure of the resemblance now, though there is a change. It was one evening at Bonaventure, was it not?" she said. "Have you forgotten me?"
"That would be impossible," and Boone bent his head a little as he made the best of it. "I see that, if necessary I could rely on Miss Haldane's kindness a second time."
Lucille looked thoughtful, Sally inquisitive, and I feared the latter might complicate circumstances by attempting to probe the mystery. Neither Gordon nor Steel noticed anything, but Boone was a judge of character and Lucille keen of wit. He asked nothing further, but I saw a question in his eyes.
"I think you could do so," she said. "You seem to have trusty friends, Rancher Ormesby; though that is not surprising on the prairie."
The words were simply spoken, and wholly unstudied; but Lucille Haldane had a very graceful way, and there was that in her eyes which brought a sparkle into those of Sally, and I saw had made the silent Gordon her slave. Her gift of fascination was part of her birthright, and she used it naturally without taint of artifice.
"Could anybody doubt it after to-day?" I said.
Then Boone smiled dryly. "I suppose it devolves upon me to acknowledge the compliment, and I am afraid that some of his friends are better than he deserves," he said. "At least, I am willing to testify that Rancher Ormesby does not importune them, for I never met any man slower to accept either good advice or well-meant assistance. Have you not found it so, Miss Steel?"
"All you men are foolish, and most of you slow," Sally answered archly. "I had to convince one with a big hard brush to-day."
This commenced the relation of reminiscences, mostly humorous, of the affray, for we could afford to laugh, and all joined in the burst of merriment which rose from outside when several horsemen came up at a gallop across the prairie. A stockrider of Caledonian extraction had borrowed my banjo to amuse his comrades, and they appreciated his irony when he played the new arrivals in to the tune of "The Campbells are coming."
Then he took off his hat to the uniformed figure which led the advance. "Ye're surely lang in comin', Sergeant, dear," he said.