LAST WARNING.
"If this ain't one hell of a post for the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police, may me next assignment be to grub all the worms in Alberta!"
Constable Mahaffy, beginning to be rotund and somewhat wrinkled in
his permanently sun-reddened countenance, thought himself alone and
was grumbling. This was a luxury in which he never would have
indulged himself had he dreamed that Sergt. Jack, his O.C. for the
day, month or year, was anywhere within hearing. But his ignorance
was bliss, wherefore he continued to unburden his troubled soul to
Poison, who feigned to listen and understand with all a hound's
artistry.
"Why did they have to wish this on me?" Mahaffy asked the dog.
"Me--me, Padraic Mahaffy, the fightingest policer of them great open
spaces the writer-people talk about? Or do they call 'em open
'places'?" He growled at the dog and Poison, sympathetic canine,
moaned in return.
"This here one sure is open enough," he went on with the hound's
entire attention. "Not even a roof on the police house, and that a
one-room shack with never a sign of a cell. And me playin' at bein'
a carpenter. If I'd fallen for workin' with tools, I'd be over in
them States makin' ten dollars a day. If I gets any more deals like
this on', I'll buy out, be jabers, and I'll----"
From around the corner of the uncompleted cabin came Jack Childress.
His appearance, unexpected, sent the one member of his detachment
into complete silence.
The sergeant knew Padraic, one of a type of "Mounties" scattered
through the Force, invaluable in their way, loyal, fearless in
danger, but the sort of trooper who never would rise beyond lowly
rank.
"So you're going to buy out, Paddy?" was his questioned greeting.
"You're the last real man I'd have expected would leave a buddy cold."
"Don't mind me, Sarg," returned the crestfallen constable. "I was
just amusin' the pup here. I'm one of the never-quits, even if I do
beef about quittin' sometimes."
Childress was as easy going, when in command, as any N.C.O. in the
service; he knew, liked and appreciated Paddy Mahaffy; in fact, he
had asked to have that particular constable detailed to him on this
Fire Weed case. But it seemed to him that the time had come for a
bit of discipline.
"Just what, Pad, is the matter with this as a post of the Royal
Mounted?" he demanded with a severity that the constable did not
recognize as mock.
"In the first place, Sergeant----" began Mahaffy.
"This, right here, the 'Open A' Ranch of John Childress, Esq., is the
first place," cut in the sergeant. "What's the matter with this as a
post?"
Thus abruptly deprived of his beloved preambles, the constable
literally was driven into the open.
"There's no roof on the post, for onct," he declared.
"And no rain in sight until September--why bother now with a roof?
We may not be here when the rain comes."
The Irisher waggled his graying head. "An' as for that, where's
there a sign of a uniform on me?"
"The overall and jumper becomes you, Padraic," insisted Childress.
"You've got to show more cause than that to have your complaint
considered."
"So, then, there's no Union Jack flyin', nor even a flag pole raised,
and there's no letters whitewashed on rocks saying R.C.M.P., and I'm
one of the finest whitewashers in the Scarlet."
"Can't you get the idea? This is a secret post--a mufti," Childress
tried to explain. "We're under cover. Besides which, and moreover,
what possible good could a uniform do you here on the Open A with not
a woman in miles?"
The sergeant had put a question the constable might answer.
"Not a woman, is it?" he demanded. "How about the flame filly who's
been hoverin' like a firefly about the edges of _our_ damn fool
ranchlet?"
Here was news to Childress, although he had strong suspicion
regarding the identity of the constable's "flame filly." If Bernice
Gallegher had been spying the small ranch, he had not even caught
enough sight of her to know the color of the pony she rode.
"You never reported her," accused the sergeant, his tone more severe
than he usually used to men under his command.
"Nothing to report," countered the rubicund Irisher. "She stayed on
her own land, as you mapped it to me on arrival, just as the dinge
stayed on hers."
"The dinge?"
"Oh, the black-haired beauty who lives to the east of us. There's
been two of them females riding the fences which ain't on this peanut
which you say belongs to the Mounted. I'll tell Commissioner Jim, if
ever I get before him again, not to send anybody down here without
the scarlet."
The sergeant felt no chagrin that he had not sighted the women
riders. After making camp, he had taken two trips away to bring in
the small stock of horses that was to lend color to his pretense of
ranching. Then he had been busy with the construction of what
eventually would be a tight little log cabin. Practically all of the
patroling had been done by the constable in the three weeks the two
had been on the ranch. Of course, Padraic should have reported both
instances, even though there had been no trespass; but then one could
not expect perfection from a man who always would be a constable
because of the limitations birth had put upon him.
That Childress was personally interested either in the blonde or the
brunette neighbor was a possibility that the sergeant cared not to
admit even to himself. What had a "Mountie," even a staff-sergeant
of the Force, to do with interest in women? The constable could have
told him "nawthin'," even though he lived clean, had a tidy bit set
by in one of the many branches of the Bank of Canada, and possessed a
heart big as all outdoors. His lot was to see that the Dominion's
police work was well done, wherever and however impossible such work
might be.
So he let the belated report of this two-sided feminine inspection
pass as a matter of small importance. But instead of going himself,
he sent the constable in their spring wagon on a twenty-mile drive to
the nearest railroad town for certain supplies of which they stood in
need.
"And remember, Padraic, to forget that you've ever had any contact
with the Royal Mounted," was the chief's parting instruction. "Don't
admit even that you've ever been arrested by one of the Scarlet."
"That I niver have, and ye know the same!" bristled Mahaffy. "Me
record's as clean as a hound's tooth. Are there any detachment of us
at Beaver Ford?"
"No detachment. Maybe a constable on smuggling duty, but he'll be
one of the new rookies and very much in uniform. Small chance of his
recognizing an old alderbush like you. If you must talk, talk horse;
you just might get a line on something. This case is something like
a cat in that there's no telling which way the darned thing's going
to jump."
To prove the sergeant right came another sample of the unexpected
less than half an hour after Constable Padraic Mahaffy had driven
away from the ranch. The gender of this surprise was feminine and
burst, like the flame she was, around a corner of the cabin.
Hammering at the task of fitting a mail-order window frame into an
opening in the wall of the unroofed structure, Childress had not
heard the soft pad-pad approach of her horse.
From his awkward position astride the window opening, he scrambled to
a more comfortable one on the prairie turf, his whimsical,
one-cornered smile offering greeting the while.
"Welcome to the Open A, Miss Gallegher," he cried with genuine
heartiness, confident that having failed to place him that day in
Strathconna she never would be able to do so here on his own ranch.
"To you belongs the distinction of being our first visitor. Drop
rein on your cayuse and I'll see what I can supply in the way of a
tea party."
Unless he had a poor memory for horseflesh, the so-called cayuse was
the same bay that had gone lame crossing "Medicine Line" that first
memorable moonlit evening.
"I came for no party--tea or otherwise," she said, her big freckle
eyes bearing steadily upon him and never a trace of smile about the
lips which knew no coloring but that of the health which comes from
life in the open. "And this hawse is no cayuse," she continued,
working backward on the items in his salutation. "Were I a bit more
interested, I might be wondering if I really was your first visitor.
What do you mean by 'Open A'?"
She wore to-day a riding suit of brownish stuff that toned with her
uncovered hair as though by a painter's touch. She made no move to
accept his invitation to alight, but with her question threw one
youthful leg over the horn of her saddle and stared down at him,
calculation admixed with interest. The sergeant recognized the worn
riding boots that had shown beneath her black skirt that day in
Strathconna. To-day, on the range, there was no skirt. After first
glance in the great openness of the Fire Weed country, he was
inclined to modify his earlier verdict that she "might have been
prettier." She looked pretty enough out here on the prairie,
hatless, with a complexion which, except for those provocative
freckles, seemed to defy the down-blazing sun.
Childress was impressed, although he should not have been. Her
refusal to drop rein and 'lite was a rebuff that approached insult in
the etiquette of the Canadian West. However, he answered her
question. "Open A is the name of my ranch."
The suggestion of cynicism, noted in town, that seemed so
uncharacteristic, returned to her gentle lips and serious eyes.
"You've a nerve to call a single section a ranch," she declared.
"But I was asking why the 'Open' and why the 'A'?"
The sergeant told himself that she was more a woman and less a girl
than he had thought. He realized that there must be some object
other than mere curiosity behind her visit. In several ways the
discovery pleased him. With a child, even a child in breeches and
perched provocatively upon a horse that was "not a cayuse," he must
need be careful. Concerning a woman grown, he need be only polite.
"From the artistry with which you drape your own, I'd imagine you are
saddle-wise to brands. 'Open A' happens to be mine. You might call
it a 'V' turned upside down. And there probably are some who will
say that it is appropriate, as this particular section of your scorn
presents an open way to America--the States."
"And the brand itself is not so difficultly different from the Widow
Andress' Rafter A," she said significantly. "In her brand the 'A'
stands on its feet and has a peaked roof over it, which is more than
your joke of a cabin boasts. A wise newcomer would have selected a
less suggestive letter. I'm glad dad's brand is 'Lazy G,' even
though it does seem to put us on our backs."
Her comment, which might be considered "range stuff" of the first
order, was the first inkling that had come to him that his selection
of a name for his property might be ill-considered. There was a
possibility of brand-blotting between "Open A" and "Rafter A."
Unlike as sounded the names when spoken, the plucking of some hair
could lead to interesting possibilities. Already Flame Gallegher had
grasped this fact, it seemed.
Already she was suspicious, but not, love the King! along the line of
his real identity which must have disclosed, prematurely, the reason
for his being in Fire Weed.
"Meaning just what--your 'brand not so difficultly different'?" he
demanded in self-defence.
"Meaning that I rode in here to-day to give you one last warning,"
she returned, the freckle-eyes flashing, as her long, slim fingers
threw back her flagrant hair.
"You've heard of brand-blotting," she went on. "Well, the boys of
the range have figured out several brands that could, with skill, be
blotted into your 'Open A.' It's evident that you don't mean to
settle down as a granger; that you can make a living here raising
stock on a single section is an obvious impossibility. The answer
seems plain."
"To you?" he asked with a sudden show of concern. His interest was
growing in this vivid young witch of the Fire Weed whose nose was
bridged with freckles and whose verbal fire was as straight as the
leaden one of his own Colts. He disliked the idea that she should
think him a horse thief, even though that rôle was behind his taking
root on the little gateway ranch. And how much easier the situation
must have become had he dared remind her that once, not long since,
he first had met her fleeing a horse-thief charge!
The girl did not answer at once. But there was a rather cynical
twist to her lips as she arranged herself into a more comfortable
seat on her over-large stock saddle.
"It don't matter what Flame Gallegher thinks," she remarked with more
deliberation than was her wont. "I'll confess to an
honest-to-goodness liking for you, Mr. Childress. Not one of those
first-sight affairs, but just a man-to-man regard that----" She
broke off suddenly. The suggestion of cynicism, that seemed so
uncharacteristic, was forced back to her gentle lips and serious
eyes. "Hell's bells!" she chided herself. "I'm getting kittenish in
my old age. What I came to tell you and what I now do tell you, so
help me God, is that if you or any one else cares a darn for the
integrity of your hide, stranger, you'd better get it out of here.
The boys have made up their mind to 'liminate you. And that's the
warning I came to deliver. Take it or leave it."
He was forced to smile at her "in my old age" remark. If she "aged"
more than twenty-two he was a poor guesser. As for being
"kittenish," he almost wished she had been.
"They sent you--the eliminating boys?" he asked.
"I'm not the sort to be sent, as you'd realize if you weren't such a
greener with women."
"Then what's the real motive behind to-day's overture? Greener that
I am, I'll venture realizing that you did not do it as a trick to get
me off this section. And I'm not conceited enough to hope that you
rode here out of pity for me. Then--why the warning?"
"You're right on a couple of counts," she slashed back. "I'd not
have bothered had it been only your beating me out by a nose at the
railroad land-office. And there isn't a reason in the world why I
should bother about you. But my father----"
"So, your father----"
"Can't abide rustlers or the suspicion of the same," she went on with
more warmth than had heated her earlier speech. "He's more
hot-headed than his daughter. Liable to shoot somebody and get
himself nearly shot-up or in trouble with those pesky Mounted Police.
I don't want him to need standing trial if a warning in time can
eliminate trouble. I wish you'd mount your wonder horse and ride
right out of the picture. If our outfit don't get you, the Rafter A
will. They're riding herd on you, as close as we are. I've seen it
myself. You haven't a chance to get away with anything less than
murder, and you don't look exactly like a--a----"
He smiled at her that whimsical grin that had carried him in and out
of so many tight holes. At last he was positively sure that she had
not connected him with the Scarlet of that border night when she had
disobeyed his gruff orders so flagrantly. It was "the man of it"
that he couldn't look behind the woman mask and know the truth. As
for himself he might have made anonymity's riffle--but how did he
expect to get away unremembered with a horse like Silver and Poison,
the dog? "Go on and say it--I don't look like a murderer," he urged.
"You can't realize how you've disappointed me in having only a filial
object for this visit. I'll think over the warning and ride to
report after due consideration."
"At your own risk if that horse of yours ever puts hoof on the
Gallegher Ranch!" she exclaimed.
If the prairie had not been dustless, he could not have seen her for
"smoke."