"My sketching tour?" she repeated. "You have not taken long to discover that I am an artist."
"The fact is obvious," he rejoined quickly, indicating the canvas that she held in her left hand. Its back was towards him, and he could not see what she had painted; but he added at a venture: "You made a picture of Minnewanka Mountain this morning."
"How do you know?" she asked in surprise. "Were you there? Did you see me at work?" She turned the canvas and held it for his inspection. "It is only a rough sketch," she explained. "I haven't come out West on a sketching tour. It is only my amusement. I am on my way to pay a surprise visit to my brother on his ranch at Mosquito Crossing. I am going to live with him, I hope, and help him with housekeeping. Perhaps you know him?"
Sergeant Silk had glanced aside at a packing-case that lay on the grass near one of the wheels of the wagon. She saw that he was reading what was written on the address label: "Miss K. Grey, Mosquito Crossing, Red Deer River, Alberta."
An expression of perplexity came upon his face.
"I did not know that any one of the name of Grey had a ranch near Mosquito Crossing," he said. "There was Andrew Grey, who ran a fruit farm near Medicine Hat; but he was too old to be a brother of yours, and besides——"
He broke off.
"My brother's name is Jim," Miss Grey explained.
"When did you last hear from him?" Silk inquired.
"Oh, months and months ago—six months, at least. It is because he hasn't written to me that I have come out to take him by surprise."