Sandy, on the other hand, had slowly but completely capitulated to the man whose first appearance had so amused him. In Alberta, daylight lingers, in the summer time, till as late as ten o’clock at night. When the day’s work was done, Sandy and his new friend, would depart from the ranch on a hunt that was new to the cattle country. They hunted, in fact, for fossils, whitened, hardened bones of the original denizens of the land that had existed before the Rocky Mountains had sprung into being by some gigantic convulsion of nature.
Zoology was a subject that exercised an uncanny fascination over the mind of the red-haired boy. P. D. had scarcely begun the instruction of this alluring subject when chess diverted him, much to the disappointment and aggravation of his son. Cheerio, however, proved a mine of information in this particular field. He had actually once been a member of an archæological expedition to Thibet, from whose bowels the bones of the oldest man in the world had been dug. Sandy could have sat by the hour listening to the tales of that expedition and its remarkable contribution to science. It was an even more enthralling experience for the youngster, therefore, to personally explore the wild canyons above the Ghost River, and, with bated excitement, himself assist in picking out on the gigantic rocks what Cheerio definitely proved were bones of a dinosaur. These immense reptiles of prehistoric days were quite common to the Red Deer district, but the new “hand” of the O Bar O had proven that they were to be found also along the Ghost River canyons.
Many a time, sitting on the bank of the river, waiting for the wary trout to bite, the slowly-drawling, seldom-stammering Cheerio, pictured to the bulging-eyed, open-mouthed youngster, the giant reptiles and mountainous mammals of prehistoric days. He even drew life-like pictures upon scraps of paper, which Sandy carefully cherished and consigned to his treasure drawer. Sandy, at such times, came as near to touching complete satisfaction with life as was possible.
His defection, in favour of Cheerio, however, was a bitter pill for his sister to swallow. Argue and squabble, wrangle and fight as the young McPherson’s had done all of their lives, for they were of a healthy, pugnacious disposition, they nevertheless had always been first-rate chums, and in a way, a defensive and offensive alliance to which no outsider had been permitted more than a look-in. Now “that Englishman” had come between them, according to Hilda. Sandy evidently preferred his society to that of his own and only sister. Thus, bitter Hilda. Sandy upbraided, reproached and sneered at, grouchily allowed that she could come along too if she wanted to and “didn’t interfere or talk too much.” Girls, he brutally averred, were a doggone, darned old nuisance, and always in the way when something real was being done. They were well enough as ornaments, said Sandy, but the female of the species was not meant for practical purposes and they ought to know and keep their place, and if they wouldn’t do it, why they’d be made to.
This was adding insult to injury. It proved beyond question that someone had been “setting her brother against her,” and Hilda knew who that someone was. Sandy knew absolutely nothing about the “female of the species”—that, by the way, was a brand new expression to the young McPhersons—and Hilda proposed to “teach him a thing or two” about her much maligned sex. Also she would “spite that Englishman” who had influenced her brother against her, by imposing her unwanted society upon the explorers.
Each evening, therefore, Hilda was on hand, and she arose before dawn of a Sunday morning—a time when all hands on the ranch were accustomed to sleep in late—to ride out with them under the grey-gold skies, with the air fresh and sparkling, and such a stillness on all sides that one felt loth to break it by even a murmur.
She rode somewhat behind the “bone enthusiasts,” disdaining to ride abreast with them, or to join in the unintelligible conversation that presently would begin. No brush was too thick to hold back this girl of the ranching country; no trail too intricate or tortuous. Foot wide ledges, over precipices three and four hundred feet above the river daunted her not. Hilda held her careless seat on the back of her surefooted and fleet young Indian pony, and if the path crumbled away in places too perilous for even a foothill horse to pass, Hilda dismounted and led him, breaking a trail herself through dense timber land.
True, bones, whether of prehistoric man or mammal, had no actual interest for the living girl. Sandy’s passion for such things indeed puzzled and troubled her, inasmuch as she was unable to share it with him. It was strangely sweet and pleasant, none the less, to ride out in the quiet dawn or in the evening when the skies were bronzed and reddened by the still lingering sun. With every day, they found new trails, new byways, new depressions in the wild woods of O Bar O.
On these excursions Sandy monopolized the conversation and, in a measure, Hilda was ignored. Cheerio’s concern in her behalf when first they had penetrated into difficult woods and his offer to lead her horse had met with haughty and bitter rebuff. Hilda, indeed, rudely suggested that she was better able to care for herself than he was. Also she said:
“Don’t bother about me. Ride on with Sandy. I like to ride alone, and I don’t care for conversation when I ride.”