"So, then, there's no Union Jack flyin', nor even a flag pole raised, and there's no letters whitewashed on rocks saying R.C.M.P., and I'm one of the finest whitewashers in the Scarlet."
"Can't you get the idea? This is a secret post—a mufti," Childress tried to explain. "We're under cover. Besides which, and moreover, what possible good could a uniform do you here on the Open A with not a woman in miles?"
The sergeant had put a question the constable might answer.
"Not a woman, is it?" he demanded. "How about the flame filly who's been hoverin' like a firefly about the edges of our damn fool ranchlet?"
Here was news to Childress, although he had strong suspicion regarding the identity of the constable's "flame filly." If Bernice Gallegher had been spying the small ranch, he had not even caught enough sight of her to know the color of the pony she rode.
"You never reported her," accused the sergeant, his tone more severe than he usually used to men under his command.
"Nothing to report," countered the rubicund Irisher. "She stayed on her own land, as you mapped it to me on arrival, just as the dinge stayed on hers."
"The dinge?"
"Oh, the black-haired beauty who lives to the east of us. There's been two of them females riding the fences which ain't on this peanut which you say belongs to the Mounted. I'll tell Commissioner Jim, if ever I get before him again, not to send anybody down here without the scarlet."
The sergeant felt no chagrin that he had not sighted the women riders. After making camp, he had taken two trips away to bring in the small stock of horses that was to lend color to his pretense of ranching. Then he had been busy with the construction of what eventually would be a tight little log cabin. Practically all of the patroling had been done by the constable in the three weeks the two had been on the ranch. Of course, Padraic should have reported both instances, even though there had been no trespass; but then one could not expect perfection from a man who always would be a constable because of the limitations birth had put upon him.