"Have a care, man!" she cried. "Some of these bogs are sure enough sink-holes. They'll swallow people as well as cattle. This fool cow isn't worth the risk. Besides, I haven't another rope to put around your neck."
"Glad you didn't say 'horns,' Miss Flame. Although I'll guess you're not certain that I don't deserve a rope around me—my neck. Your interest in me shows that I should have said that the lady was merciful. Don't worry. I'm only going to dig out and loosen her forefeet with my hands; then I'll lift and boost while you and the cayuse pull on the rope. Perhaps, between us, we can work her to the bank."
The task of mercy to which he had assigned himself was hard and disagreeable, but he persisted. And the Fire Flame girl lent expert aid in her management of her mount. Between them, they did drag the "fool cow" to firm ground. There, Childress tailed her up and got her to her feet, too dazed from her experience even to bellow her resentment for treatment that she did not understand.
"Bet she does not live to raise her calf," remarked the girl owner of the bovine in question.
"One out of five does," was all the reassurance Childress could offer. "Maybe she's the lucky fifth."
Flame Gallegher nodded her agreement with this adage of the range. "Bog-riding isn't profitable to us cowmen," she said, "but it seems too dreadful to let them die in the water without at least trying to do something for them. I'm greatly obliged, Mr. Childress. Never could have dragged her out without help."
The reason he suddenly stopped lacing his boot was because, all at once, she smiled at him. Slowly, delightfully, the smile started in an unsuspected dimple in one cheek, parted her ripe lips over teeth of dazzling whiteness, lit her whole face like a glory of electricity after twilight in a room. Never, the "Mountie" assured himself, had he seen so luring a smile. And her voice, when she spoke to him thus directly, had the appealing vibration of a cello string.
"If you think you must meet my dad and the outfit," she said, "I'll show you the way."
His hat was off, as due the best moment of their acquaintance. But he found himself, as they rode westward together, mentally assorting reasons—possible reasons—for the two warnings that had come to him. After all, there was some recompense to the Arctic patrol; one did not have two fair women to worry about up there where the igloo belles were greasy with blubber and reeked with the odor of dried fish. At that, so long as he might occasionally draw forth that dimpled smile, he'd never ask Commissioner Jim to send him back to the Frozen North.
But their ride together this glorious afternoon had rude interruption, and that, alack, just as the two were beginning to feel the getting-acquainted thrill of this third contact. In one way—possibly two ways—it was unfortunate that the sergeant's roving eyes were attracted by a pair of buzzards cutting the blue a mile or so to the right of their direct course to the Gallegher home ranch. To him the slow-winged spirals of these black scavengers of the air signified that they were flying a death watch over man or beast in trouble and nearing the end. Professional instinct and training dictated a detour that he might determine who or what had attracted the attention of the hawks.