That Fitzrapp had avoided war service by clever subterfuge and ostensibly meritorious home service was one of the things that continually cropped up between the fair owner of the Rafter A and the dashing foreman employed on advice of her uncle. The man knew better than to enter upon that subject. He regretted the slur that had crept into his tone in discussing the stranger.
But in view of his acknowledged suit for the hand, acres and herds of the widow Andress he was not inclined to brook interference from any attractive adventurer, who might, only too easily, became attracted. As he rode the easy, homeward-bound pace, he considered means of blocking any growth of interest in the widow should the major be inclined toward Childress.
Suddenly a startling thought, an inspiration quite in keeping with the emergency, came to him.
"Did you notice, Ethel, the horse that stranger is riding?"
"Did I notice?" cried Mrs. Andress enthusiastically. "Could I help noticing when he carried me several of the finest miles I've ever ridden? And just remember that the number of those miles is large, considering that my first hobbyhorse was a wall-eyed pinto cow pony, and that I practiced roping animals by tossing strings around the kitchen cat as soon as I could tie a knot."
"But I mean—what's the description of the horse?"
"He's a silver-gray stallion, probably a half-blood, but as beautiful a cross as you'll find in the prairie provinces," answered the widow, who knew horseflesh with that accuracy which most young women reserve for the latest fashions.
"And what have we heard about a silver stallion in the past year?" Fitzrapp asked gravely. "Have those renegades from across the border ever run any of our blooded stock off Rafter A that we didn't see or hear of their leader riding such a horse? Didn't I see a silver stallion myself in a lightning flash that stormy night when I so nearly ran them down at the boundary?"
Ethel gave him a startled glance. "Just what are you hinting at, Tom?"
"Don't want to be too hasty in judging any white man, but the possibility stands out that this chap who calls himself Childress may well be the head of the rustlers, and that the silver stallion prancing ahead there may be the one he has ridden on his costly visits to the Fire Weed range. It won't do our interests any damage to be on guard."