CHAPTER III.

IN THE WRONG PARTY.

The smile of Jack Childress was one of the famous smiles of the Royal Mounted, but it was not in evidence this brilliant morning of early spring. His attempt to save the girl had been really, honestly gallant, and he held nothing against her attitude. He had blundered, but the look she gave him on riding away astride Silver showed that she understood his intention and more, thanked him for trying, even though his try was a miss.

He started to stalk the sorrel, cropping grass nearby, evidently content at being relieved of the responsibility of the chase, now that she had no rider aboard. In this effort he was successful, thanks to his skill with the rope. Crawling up hand-over-hand, he closed in on the horse and repaired the broken rein.

The situation amused him. A "Mountie" with his string around another person's "hawse" in a land where autos still are "sniffy things" and the equine is one of man's most treasured possessions! And this at a time when a horse stealing band, presumedly from the States, had been so perniciously active on the ranges along the International border!

Of course, he was safe enough in the circumstance of the young woman having borrowed Silver, a horse whose shoulder-brand he felt confident none of the Strathconna riders would recognize. Yet his hold upon the sorrel gave him an odd feeling, and his expression was grave as he realized that his misunderstanding of the girl's danger had been a tactical error.

To enter the provincial metropolis in such spread-eagle fashion had been furthest from his intention. He was unobtrusive by nature and particularly so by calling, when not in the scarlet of dress-parade. The occasion of this visit, moreover, commanded particular caution. Yet here he was advertising himself and his presence in a most spectacular manner; first by attempting to rescue a lovely creature of the local hunt club when it seemed she neither required nor desired saving, and then by loaning her his unusual mount that she might ride the chase to its finish.

He gazed across the reservation's sweep to the point where the hounds had surrounded an exceedingly tired coyote. The horse nearest the pack was his own gray, and the hair of the daring girl rider again was streaming straight out behind her as she held a firm seat on his over-large saddle and steered with a tight rein.

"Come what may," he murmured reflection, "she'll be in at the finish despite my blunder." But his smile was forced as he added to the filly: "Reckon, Princess, I can pay the piper for this unexpected dance."

Poison, the hound dog, was just that to the coyotes and would finish this one in short order. Served the pirate of the West as it deserved--miserable preyer on small lambs and even older ewes, raider of chicken coops and panhandler at the cattleman's expense when it finds a calf lying under the shelter of some bush where it has been left while its mother grazes or hoofs to water. Yes, the coyote would get just deserts.

But when Childress viewed closely the features of one of the males of the hunting party--this a moment later--he feared that he might be overcharged for the "dance." Unless the description given him was at fault, the oncomer was the particular man of the Strathconna region whom he least desired to meet.

That florid complexion, that aquiline nose above a short-cropped, sandy mustache, that somewhat rotund but powerful figure and the red blaze of a scar on the left cheek--all would seem to introduce to his expert eyes a certain Thomas Fitzrapp, manager of the well-stocked Fire Weed Ranch, thirty miles nearer the International boundary, the horses of which wore the Rafter A of the Andress brand--a half-diamond above the initial letter.

Had the sergeant's own mount been in hand, he would have postponed the meeting indefinitely by trusting to Silver's speed. As he could not race away on a horse belonging to a strange young woman, he decided to brazen out the encounter and, if necessary, revise his Strathconna program. Without troubling to readjust stirrup straps, he flung into the girl's saddle and rode toward the hunting party, which by now was surrounding the pack.

Fitzrapp, approaching at speed, hailed him sharply, with an arrogance of tone that added a last touch to the mental description which the Mountie held of the man he did not wish to meet. He was answered with a glance and a noncommittal "Howdy, stranger!"

"Where do you think you're riding with Mrs. Andress' saddler?" came indignant demand.

Lids narrowed over the eyes of the man in mufti as he surveyed the questioner, fashionably clad in a riding suit of gray whipcord. Andress? The name removed any possible doubt as to the identity of the querulous horseman. But at Regina division headquarters, when he had received his secret service assignment to the Fire Weed country no one had said anything about the lady of the ranch being married. Certainly he was stumbling upon personages this morning!

"Who might you be and why do you question me?" Childress asked, the usual good-nature of his tone dulled by the other's arrogance.

"I'm Thomas Fitzrapp, master of hounds on this hunt into which you've inserted yourself."

"Inserted myself is correct, Mr. Fitzrapp, and I've a suspicion that I don't fit any better than a round peg does into a square hole. None the less I'm riding this filly to her owner that I may swap back for my own beast who happens to be stirruped more to the comfort of my legs. Can't see that anyone should object to that, not even the lady's husband."

Fitzrapp flicked his ivory-handled crop against one of his shining boots, at loss just how to handle this interloper.

"Mrs. Andress is a widow, sir, and somewhat under my protection." He offered this bit of news gratuitously. "Your accent tells me that you're from the States."

The mouth of Childress twitched whimsically. He had been in the United States and recently, but he was not "from" there in the sense meant by the assured master-of-hounds. He grasped the opportunity to cover his connection with "The Force" by an equivocal return.

"I haven't noticed much difference in accent either side of the line," he said. "Shall we join the bunch?"

Childress was not asking permission, not on this any-man's range. He did not wait for answer, but headed toward the hunters.

Their arrival found old Poison offsetting his lack of straight breeding by a strength of character that was causing considerable tumult among the hounds. The Strathconna fashion-folk hunted with a cross between the Russian wolfhound and the English grayhound, swift runners, quick at turning, but not always eager to kill. Gladly had Poison taken upon himself, it seemed, the right to toss the coyote. Then, moved by jealousy, the blooded pack had attempted to take the "brush" away from him.

By the time the sergeant arrived, the police dog had put three of them _hors de combat_, and was holding the rest at safe distance by threat of savage fangs. None of the men riders had cared to dispute the strange canine's right of possession on behalf of Mrs. Andress, who was clamoring for her prize as the first human in at the death.

"Me and mine sure are interfering with this hunt, folks," cried Childress as he reined the mare and sprang to the prairie sod.

He strode toward his dog, who began an indeterminate, equivocal wagging of his tail. "You darned old scoundrel!" he began, in a tone that only pretended to chide. "Can't you get it through your peaked roof that we're not invited to this party? Give me that wolf!"

The blow he sent Poison's way was accepted by that discriminating beast as a caress, and the dead coyote promptly was surrendered. Picking up a thirty-five pound specimen of the prairie pest, Childress turned toward the young woman, who still sat his horse and had just finished parking her disordered hair. Old Poison slouched at his heels, casting defiant glances from side to side at the other dogs.

"Here's your trophy, Mrs. Andress," he said, removing his Stetson. "Let me apologize again and in behalf of the three of us for breaking into your hunt."

Her smiling return reminded him of the wiles of widows. "I can forgive you all," she said. "I haven't a doubt that you acted with the best intention, and this silver beauty of yours certainly gave me a flying finish. If you'll help me out of your outrageous saddle, we'll call it quits!"

As Childress gallantly handed her down, a fine-looking old gentleman with pointed beard swung nimbly from the back of a big bay gelding and approached with outstretched hand.

"Let me introduce myself," he began, "I am Ivan MacDonald, cast by fate in the rôle of uncle to this young hoyden. I've warned her repeatedly that this Indian reservation isn't a race course, even though it never has been cursed with barbed wire. I've begged her to be content with a nimble-hoofed cayuse instead of that spindle-shanked thoroughbred, and I hoped I had made some impression upon her. But to-day, through some excess of spirit, she got away from me--from all of us--and raced off after that little wolf as though Old Nick himself were after her. We topped the divide, sir, fearing to find her a bundle of broken bones, but were in time to witness your performance, as superb a piece of horsemanship as I've ever seen, and I've grown white in a horse-and-cow country."

The Strathconna riders, most of them mounted on sure-footed cayuses, who had gathered around, expressed their agreement with MacDonald's praise.

"You speak of me, uncle, as though I were still in pinafores," said the widow, laughing, evidently in fine humor from having outrun the field and been in alone at the death.

"Well, your hair was certainly down your back a few minutes ago," declared the uncle. He turned to the stranger. "You don't know, young man, what a fright was lifted off my mind and heart when you whisked my beloved relative over to your own sturdy mount. Yours is the first masculine arm I ever approved of around her waist."

"Uncle," she protested. "Tell them the truth and spare my blushes. You know that it is the first time you ever saw any one's arm around my waist, whether you approved or not." She looked highly pleased with her repartee on noting that sufficient color had mounted the cheeks of the handsome stranger to show through his coat of tan. Obviously her delight increased when a side glance found Tom Fitzrapp to be frowning, evidently highly annoyed.

"Nothing worth speaking about--what I did," protested the under-cover sergeant, wondering if he really was embarrassed or merely pretending so to be.

"Any man near enough could have done it," snapped Fitzrapp uncautiously. "Stunt rider shuff!"

"I notice you weren't _near_ enough, Tom," laughed Major MacDonald. "If our new friend of the silver horse had held to my little spitfire after he had her good and rescued, I'd have been better pleased. But then, knowing her powers of persuasion, I can understand his weakening." With frank, friendly directness, he turned to the civilian-clad Mountie. "Whom have I to thank for my niece's rescue?"

"Wasn't rescued," the widow flashed insistence, but for once without commanding male attention.

"Name's Childress--John Childress. Am having my first intimate look-in at this province. May settle down here for a while if a rolling stone ever gathers moss enough to take root."

All of which was true as far as it went, but scarcely informative for King's-service reasons.

Evidently Fitzrapp disliked the attention which the stranger was receiving. He offered brusque suggestion that they go on with the hunt, assuring the riders that the hounds quickly would raise another coyote.

This proposal, however, brought a chorus of protest. Several glanced at their watches. The hour was noon and the majority decided that they had "hunted" sufficiently for that day. When he found that even Mrs. Andress was content with her single triumph, the "master" called in the dogs.

"Ride with me to the city, Childress," Major MacDonald suggested cordially. "If there's anything about our prize province that you want to know, I'm supposed to be posted."

"That will be a pleasure, sir, though I can't claim it as a reward for my blundering this morning." He sent a meaning smile toward the colorful widow, but missed fire. She seemed not to have heard his remark about blundering, so intent was she in the adjustment of her saddle cinches.

"Then mount, and we're off," said MacDonald. The distinguished-looking major, in turn looked at his niece. His glance, too, was meaning, and advised her that she need not ride with them.

Poison growled parting challenge to the pack, then loped off at a hound's pace after the silver horse that was his pal. The three of them--man, horse and hound--each after his kind, had enjoyed thrills this suddenly eventful morning.