No. The facts remained. She was surrounded on the one hand by a bunch of cattle thieves who were located around Dan Quinlan’s, and on the other lay the threat of a good-looker bad lot, who had somehow contrived to dazzle her innocent mind. She certainly needed all the help he could give her.
He made a sound in his throat like a chuckle. He felt he had by no means done badly by Mister Andy McFardell. He had sown the ground well, he felt. Set him after the cattle-thieving bunch up at Dan Quinlan’s, get him playing the police game which belonged to him, with the prospect of getting back into the Force as a result. The thing would get right hold of him, and, if it succeeded, it might well rid the neighbourhood of his detested presence. Then Molly would forget him.
But would she? Women were queer. He remembered Sadie Long, who once chased him half-way across the States. Anyway——
His reflections were interrupted, and he thrust up a hand to push the loose brim of his hat clear from his eyes. His startled gaze was fixed on the approach of a horseman on a big, raking sorrel. He was emerging from a gap in the bush lining the bank of the creek, which he had apparently only just crossed. In his quick way Lightning also realised that the horseman must have come from somewhere out of the south-west. Maybe from—Dan Quinlan’s!
But as the horse came on an ejaculation of surprise broke from him. It was not a horseman at all. The rider was a woman! A woman clad in city clothing, and riding on a man’s saddle, with the horn and leggaderos and stirrups which he recognised at once as of Californian make!
Blanche Pryse reined up sharply. And her greeting came with a disarming smile. Lightning’s hat was torn from his head, to reveal the shock of grey hair which looked never to have known the use of a comb.
“I’m looking for some place I can get feed for my horse,” Blanche cried, “and a bite of something to eat for myself. You see, I came further than I ought, and—and got rather mazed up with the hills around here. I saw you with your team, and reckoned you must have a homestead near abouts.”
Lightning’s grinning face was transparently reassuring. Had the stranger been a man, there would have been a difference. He cleared his throat, and, out of respect for a woman who was obviously a lady, and a stranger, he spat out his chew of tobacco, and trod the result underfoot.
“I’m real glad you come along, ma’am,” he said cordially. “You surely hev come to the right place fer feed. The barn’s back o’ them woods,” he added, pointing in a northerly direction. “An’ Molly gal’s right to home, an’ll feel good if you’ll eat with her. I’m just quittin’ fer feed myself, an’ making home, an’ I’ll be mighty pleased to give you a lead.”
Lightning’s effort was in his best manner, for he was gazing up into a face which, even to his suspicious mind, could have no association with cattle thieves.