"Dinna mind her at all," advised the old man; "she'd be doin' ye a good turn wi' just as ready a will as she would mak' sport o' ye. Do I not know her?—ah, but I do!"
"So does the Stuart," said Rachel; "and as for doing him a good turn, I proved my devotion in that line this morning, when I saved him from a lonely, monotonous ride—didn't I?" she added, glancing up at him.
"You look positively impish," was the only reply he made; and returning her gaze with one that was half amusement, half vexation, he went out for the horses.
"You see, he didn't want me at all, Davy MacDougall," confided the girl, and if she felt any chagrin she concealed it admirably. "But they've been talking some about Genesee down at the ranch, and—and Stuart's interest was aroused. I didn't know how curious he might be—Eastern folks are powerful so"—and in the statement and adoption of vernacular she seemed to forget how lately she was of the East herself; "and I concluded he might ask questions, or encourage you to talk about—well, about the tunnel, you know; so I just came along to keep the trail free of snags—see?"
The old man nodded, and watched her in a queer, dubious way; as she turned, a moment later, to speak to Stuart at the door, she noticed it, and laughed.
"You think I'm a bit loony, don't you, Davy MacDougall? Well, I forgive you. May be, some day, you'll see I'm not on a blind trail. Come and see us soon, and give me a chance to prove my sanity."
"Strange that any mind could doubt it," murmured Stuart. "Come, we haven't time for proofs of the question now. Good-bye, MacDougall; take care of yourself for the winter. Perhaps I'll get back in the summer to see how well you have done so."
A hearty promise of welcome, a hand-clasp, a few more words of admonition and farewell, and then the two young people rode away across the ground deemed uncanny by the natives; and the old man went back to his lonely task.
On reaching the ranch at dusk, it was Rachel who was mildly hilarious, seeming to have changed places with the gay chanter of the dawn. He was not sulky, but something pretty near it was in his manner, and rather intensified under Miss Hardy's badinage.
She told the rest how he divided his whisky with the squaw; hinted at a fear that he intended adopting the papoose; gave them an account of the conversation between himself and Skulking Brave; and otherwise made their trip a subject for ridicule.