"I came for no party—tea or otherwise," she said, her big freckle eyes bearing steadily upon him and never a trace of smile about the lips which knew no coloring but that of the health which comes from life in the open. "And this hawse is no cayuse," she continued, working backward on the items in his salutation. "Were I a bit more interested, I might be wondering if I really was your first visitor. What do you mean by 'Open A'?"
She wore to-day a riding suit of brownish stuff that toned with her uncovered hair as though by a painter's touch. She made no move to accept his invitation to alight, but with her question threw one youthful leg over the horn of her saddle and stared down at him, calculation admixed with interest. The sergeant recognized the worn riding boots that had shown beneath her black skirt that day in Strathconna. To-day, on the range, there was no skirt. After first glance in the great openness of the Fire Weed country, he was inclined to modify his earlier verdict that she "might have been prettier." She looked pretty enough out here on the prairie, hatless, with a complexion which, except for those provocative freckles, seemed to defy the down-blazing sun.
Childress was impressed, although he should not have been. Her refusal to drop rein and 'lite was a rebuff that approached insult in the etiquette of the Canadian West. However, he answered her question. "Open A is the name of my ranch."
The suggestion of cynicism, noted in town, that seemed so uncharacteristic, returned to her gentle lips and serious eyes.
"You've a nerve to call a single section a ranch," she declared. "But I was asking why the 'Open' and why the 'A'?"
The sergeant told himself that she was more a woman and less a girl than he had thought. He realized that there must be some object other than mere curiosity behind her visit. In several ways the discovery pleased him. With a child, even a child in breeches and perched provocatively upon a horse that was "not a cayuse," he must need be careful. Concerning a woman grown, he need be only polite.
"From the artistry with which you drape your own, I'd imagine you are saddle-wise to brands. 'Open A' happens to be mine. You might call it a 'V' turned upside down. And there probably are some who will say that it is appropriate, as this particular section of your scorn presents an open way to America—the States."
"And the brand itself is not so difficultly different from the Widow Andress' Rafter A," she said significantly. "In her brand the 'A' stands on its feet and has a peaked roof over it, which is more than your joke of a cabin boasts. A wise newcomer would have selected a less suggestive letter. I'm glad dad's brand is 'Lazy G,' even though it does seem to put us on our backs."
Her comment, which might be considered "range stuff" of the first order, was the first inkling that had come to him that his selection of a name for his property might be ill-considered. There was a possibility of brand-blotting between "Open A" and "Rafter A." Unlike as sounded the names when spoken, the plucking of some hair could lead to interesting possibilities. Already Flame Gallegher had grasped this fact, it seemed.
Already she was suspicious, but not, love the King! along the line of his real identity which must have disclosed, prematurely, the reason for his being in Fire Weed.