"Oh, it's not Alphonse's usefulness I mourn for," admitted Miss Durant. "It's the appearance of the thing; the chic. My father always likes me to have the best of everything; and I owe it to his position no less than to my own dignity to travel in the best style. Officer," again she appealed to Barney, "can't you recommend me a courier?"
Barney looked his bewilderment. "Is it a currier for the horses av your automeboiler ye do be wanting, miss?"
Perceiving in this breach his opportunity, Scarlett stepped boldly into it. "May I apply for the position? I'm looking for work."
"Lookin' for throuble, more like," muttered Barney, with solicitude. "Wid all thim lasses! Begorra, I know the sect."
Evelyn turned about and surveyed the speaker critically. "Ah, I'm glad it's employment and not alms you want," she commended the busiest, most hardworked official in the district. "But—I wonder—are you qualified?" Into her pretty eyes there crept a look of doubt.
"I know something about horses," with truth the Mounted Policeman assured her.
"But not about lasses," Barney anxiously tugged at his sleeve. "'Tis them as leads ye the divvle av a ride, and is like as not to run away wid ye."
"H'm!" Evelyn considered the matter. The shaggy picturesqueness of the prospectors in colored flannel shirts, top boots and corduroys, with hands ever on gun or pistol, their odd phrase and lurid expletive, touched the silly streak of romanticism in her as had they been chorus of an opera in which she found herself enacting the star rôle, but this clean-skinned young man, with unadorned speech, in commonplace, work-a-day clothes, at first failed to interest her.
"H'm! Well," she conceded finally, "I'm something of a judge of people. Step into the light where we can take a good look at you."
As Scarlett obeyed, "There!" cried little Kate, triumphantly. "The nice, modest way he changes color, I'm sure he doesn't drink!"