CHAPTER IV.
RIDING BOOT RIVALS.
Ethel Andress believed she knew the men of her immediate command. Hers was the assurance of a widowhood that, after two years, had lost its poignancy over the past for interest in the future. She felt sure of Thomas Fitzrapp, bachelor manager of her ranch in the Fire Weed country—more sure of his feelings than of her own. Her handsome, distinguished uncle was, she thought, an open book to her. She needed not even to turn down the corner of the page when she left off reading him. He was his own bookmark.
He was riding into Strathconna with this attractive stranger in order to try him out without any assistance from her. That was as obvious as a scare head in the Montreal Star. If this Childress man measured up, probably she would meet him again at the hospitable board of the winter house which they shared in the wonder town. If, for any reason, he failed to come up to the pioneer's rough but obligatory standard, he would ride out of her life on the present occasion, and the incident of the morning would not again be mentioned.
In secret, the widow hoped that the unknown would prove sufficiently sterling for further acquaintance, for, even though she had berated him, his resource in what he had imagined an emergency had pleased her. Moreover, she liked the clean-cut, resolute look of him; his direct, outspoken manner; his appearance of having lived a great diversity of experience without too much wear and tear, and—this last count of the indictment essentially feminine—his waving chestnut hair. She offered no protest to her uncle's unspoken decision that she should ride with the other members of the club.
There was wisdom, she realized, in his precaution in a land filled with such a miscellaneous population as had crowded into their Western province in the last few years.
To the evident satisfaction of Fitzrapp, who had missed the major's glance of instruction, she ranged the sorrel alongside his mount. The dogs were under easy control, having lost all interest in any further close contact with the stranger hound, Poison. That for a time she was silent, gazing over the wonder panorama of the Canadian Rockies to the westward, did not trouble the man, for he was accustomed to her caprices and had forced himself to possess great patience wherever and whenever she was concerned. Her initial remark on the ride home, however, was far from encouraging.
"From where—from what port of missing men do you suppose my attractive rescuer hails?" she asked, her manner so innocent as to deny a desire to stab him in a tender spot.
"He wasn't your rescuer," grumbled Fitzrapp.
"Would have been had I been in danger. From where, do you suppose?"