That Childress was personally interested either in the blonde or the brunette neighbor was a possibility that the sergeant cared not to admit even to himself. What had a "Mountie," even a staff-sergeant of the Force, to do with interest in women? The constable could have told him "nawthin'," even though he lived clean, had a tidy bit set by in one of the many branches of the Bank of Canada, and possessed a heart big as all outdoors. His lot was to see that the Dominion's police work was well done, wherever and however impossible such work might be.
So he let the belated report of this two-sided feminine inspection pass as a matter of small importance. But instead of going himself, he sent the constable in their spring wagon on a twenty-mile drive to the nearest railroad town for certain supplies of which they stood in need.
"And remember, Padraic, to forget that you've ever had any contact with the Royal Mounted," was the chief's parting instruction. "Don't admit even that you've ever been arrested by one of the Scarlet."
"That I niver have, and ye know the same!" bristled Mahaffy. "Me record's as clean as a hound's tooth. Are there any detachment of us at Beaver Ford?"
"No detachment. Maybe a constable on smuggling duty, but he'll be one of the new rookies and very much in uniform. Small chance of his recognizing an old alderbush like you. If you must talk, talk horse; you just might get a line on something. This case is something like a cat in that there's no telling which way the darned thing's going to jump."
To prove the sergeant right came another sample of the unexpected less than half an hour after Constable Padraic Mahaffy had driven away from the ranch. The gender of this surprise was feminine and burst, like the flame she was, around a corner of the cabin. Hammering at the task of fitting a mail-order window frame into an opening in the wall of the unroofed structure, Childress had not heard the soft pad-pad approach of her horse.
From his awkward position astride the window opening, he scrambled to a more comfortable one on the prairie turf, his whimsical, one-cornered smile offering greeting the while.
"Welcome to the Open A, Miss Gallegher," he cried with genuine heartiness, confident that having failed to place him that day in Strathconna she never would be able to do so here on his own ranch.
"To you belongs the distinction of being our first visitor. Drop rein on your cayuse and I'll see what I can supply in the way of a tea party."
Unless he had a poor memory for horseflesh, the so-called cayuse was the same bay that had gone lame crossing "Medicine Line" that first memorable moonlit evening.