The long arm of the Mounted

by James French Dorrance

Her uncle had been quick to Fitzrapp's defence. Rifles had a certain range of fire, and Tom never had been near enough, any more than had any of the rest of the outfit. She had better let him have a few days off and come back primed for the next raid.

But Fitzrapp had seen the danger flash in his employer's eyes. He had voiced a quiet, white-faced decision to remain on the range. Without the use of words, which would have been useless at the moment, he tried to tell her with his eyes that he was remaining to redeem himself.

As the piebald hoofed the prairie, up one roll of sward and down another, across a patch of the worthless fire weed from which the region took its name and over a more bountiful one of buffalo and grama grasses which made it valuable for grazing, Ethel Andress pondered a plan of her own. She had ridden many a mile working it out on other days. This plan in short was to bait the lower range—that nearest the international border—with her finest stock, enlist a band of gun-fighters, and, with herself in command, await the raid that she was certain would follow. The more she thought of this baited-trap idea the better she liked it.

But the particular object of her present sortie on horseback was that she might make up her mind regarding one Thomas Fitzrapp. For years, since childhood, in fact, it had been her habit to take to the saddle and the open range when serious problems of life required adjustment. It was on one such wild ride that she had decided to link her fortunes with Cliff Andress, only to have him respond to the Empire's call so soon afterward that she could scarcely realize they ever had been married. And almost as soon as he could cross the Atlantic, do a bit of training in England and get over to Flanders, she had found herself a widow.

There seemed no doubt about Fitzrapp's interest. It had been as gentle as a mother's in the first tragic days. Once taken on to manage the ranch he had behaved beyond question until the raids on the Rafter A beauties began. Since, she had wondered why he always got shot at and never seemed to shoot back, just as she could not understand why Fitzrapp, graduate of Sandhurst, had been unable to see service when every able-bodied citizen in Canada was up and ready to go. True, he had done excellent work training recruits at one of the big camps outside Quebec, but—— There was that big BUT!

Ethel had just been emerging from widowhood at the time of his arrival on the ranch which she had been forced to take over. At once he had become an admirer. This devotion had endured and strengthened with the years, so that, although she often laughed at it, she had grown to rely upon it as well as to feel flattered about it.

A man of Fitzrapp's education and experience was rare in her social life. His easy manner gave him an appeal that other men of her somewhat limited acquaintance lacked. Although not positively handsome, as was her uncle, considering his age, Thomas Fitzrapp had a commanding presence, and expressive, deep-set brown eyes. Growing into womanhood, she had become more certain of her admirer's personal value, and, by comparison with other men, found in him graces that compelled her appreciative consideration.

Under the circumstances Blackandwhite, the cayuse, was left largely to his own devices, which, in this instance, considered only setting his own pace and "boxing" his own compass. The widow, concerned with her mental inquest on the suitor who had disappointed about the raid, continued that investigation of herself and of him.

Certainly Tom Fitzrapp always had been most kind to her; tolerant of her whims, which she knew had been many; considerate of her feelings, which were not near the surface, and respectful toward her opinions, which were decided.

The pronounced fault of jealousy which Fitzrapp lately had developed pleased more than it annoyed her. When brought to task for this, he always assured her that it would disappear once she had given him an affirmative answer to his persisting question. But this answer she postponed, keeping him in the equivocal position of being neither refused nor accepted. Most men would have considered this treatment unfair. Under the circumstances, she was impressed by his personal optimism.