“You’re not goin’ to hitch up with Linder, are you?”
“Linder? Who said anything about Linder?”
“Gee, but ain’t she innercent?” Drazk stepped his horse up a few feet to facilitate conversation. “I alus take an interest in innercent gals away from home, so I kinda kep’ my angel eye on you las’ night. An’ I see Linder stalkin’ aroun’ here an’ sighin’ out over the water when he should ‘ave been in bed. But, of course, he’s been interduced.”
“George Drazk, if you speak to me again I’ll horse-whip you out of the camp at noon before all the men. Now, beat it!”
“Jus’ as you say, Ma’am,” he returned, with mock courtesy. “But I could tell a strange story if I would. But you don’t need to be scared. That’s one thing I never do—I never squeal on a friend.”
She was burning with his insults, and if she had had a gun at hand she undoubtedly would have made good her threat. But she had none. Drazk very deliberately turned his horse and rode away toward the meadows.
“Oh, won’t I fix him!” she said, as she continued her toilet in a fury. She had not the faintest idea what revenge she would take, but she promised herself that it would leave nothing to be desired. Then, because she was young and healthy and an optimist, and did not know what it meant to be afraid, she dismissed the incident from her mind to consider the more urgent matter of breakfast.
Tompkins, the cook, had not needed Transley’s suggestion to put his best foot forward when catering to Y.D. and his daughter. Tompkins’ soul yearned for a cooking berth that could be occupied the year round. Work in the railway camps had always left him high and dry at the freeze-up—dry, particularly, and a few nights in Calgary or Edmonton saw the end of his season’s earnings. Then came a precarious existence for Tompkins until the scrapers were back on the dump the following spring. A steady job, cooking on a ranch like the Y.D.; if Tompkins had written the Apocalypse that would have been his picture of heaven. So he had left nothing undone, even to despatching a courier over night to a railway station thirty miles away for fresh fruit and other delicacies. Another of the gang had been impressed into a trip up the river to a squatter who was suspected of keeping one or two milch cows and sundry hens.
“This way, Ma’am,” Tompkins was waving as Zen emerged from the grove. “Another of our usual mornings. Hope you slep’ well, Ma’am.” He stood deferentially aside while she ascended the three steps that led into the covered wagon.
Zen gave a little shriek of delight, and Tompkins felt that all his efforts had been well repaid. One end of the table—it was with a sore heart Tompkins had realized that he could not cut down the big table—one end of the table was set with a clean linen cloth and granite dishware scoured until it shone. Beside Zen’s plate were grape fruit and sliced oranges and real cream.