than he expected. Only once did he observe any signs of human activity, and then the loafing attitude of the two punchers riding leisurely through a field half a mile away was but too apparent. By the time he came within sight of the ranch-house, nestling pleasantly in a little grove of cottonwoods beyond the creek, his face was set in a hard scowl.
“Looks to me like they were letting the whole outfit go to pot,” he muttered angrily. “It sure is time I whirled in and took a hand.”
Urging the roan forward, he rode splashing through the shallow stream, up the gentle slope, and swung out of his saddle close to the kitchen door. This stood open, and striding up to it Buck met the languid gaze of a swarthy middle-aged Mexican who lounged just within the portal.
“Miss Thorne around?” he asked curtly.
“Sure,” shrugged the Mexican. “I t’ink she in fron’ house. Yoh try aroun’ other door, mebbe fin’ her.”
In the old days the kitchen entrance had been the one most used, but Buck remembered that there was another at the opposite end of the building which opened directly into the ranch living-room. He sought it now, observing with preoccupied surprise that a small covered veranda had been built out from the house, found it ajar like the other, and knocked.
“Come in,” said a voice.
Stratton crossed the threshold, instinctively removing his hat. As he remembered it, the room, though of good size and comfortable enough, had been a clutter of purely masculine belongings. He was quite unprepared for the colorful gleam of Navajo rugs, the curtained windows, the general air of swept and garnished tidiness which seemed almost luxury. Briefly his sweeping glance took in a bowl of flowers on the center-table and then came to rest abruptly on a slight, girlish figure just risen from a chair beside it.
“I’d like to see Miss Thorne, please,” he said, stifling his momentary surprise.
The girl took a step forward, her slim, tanned, ringless fingers clasped loosely about a book she held.
“I’m Miss Thorne,” she answered in a low, pleasant voice.
Buck gasped and his eyes widened. Then he recovered himself swiftly.
“I mean Miss Mary Thorne,” he explained; “the – er – owner of this outfit.”
The girl smiled faintly, a touch of veiled wistfulness in her eyes.
“I’m Mary Thorne,” she said quietly. “There’s only one, you know.”
CHAPTER IV
THE BRANDING-IRON
Stratton was never sure just how long he stood staring at her in dumb, dazed bewilderment. After those mental pictures of the Mary Thorne he had expected to find, it was small wonder that the sight of this slip of a black-frocked girl, with her soft voice, her tawny-golden hair and wistful eyes, should stun him into temporary speechlessness. Even when he finally pulled himself together to feel a hot flush flaming in his face and find one gloved hand recklessly crumpling his new Stetson, he could not quite credit the evidence of his hearing.
“I – I beg pardon,” he said stiffly. “But it doesn’t seem possible that – ”
He hesitated. The girl’s smile deepened whimsically.
“I know,” she said ruefully. “It never does. Nobody seems to think a girl can seriously attempt to run a cattle-ranch – even the way I’m trying to run it, with a capable foreman to look after things. Sometimes I wonder if – ”
She paused, her glance falling on the book she held. Stratton saw that it was a shabby account-book, a stubby pencil thrust between the leaves.
“Yes?” he prompted, scarcely aware what made him ask the question.
She looked up at him, her eyes a little wider than before. They were a warm hazel, and for an instant in their depths Stratton glimpsed a troubled expression, so veiled and swiftly passing that a moment later he could not be sure he had read aright.
“It’s nothing,” she shrugged. “You probably know what a lot of nagging little worries a ranchman has, and sometimes it seems to me they all have to come at once. I suppose even a man gets a bit discouraged, now and then.”
“He sure does,” agreed Buck. “What – er – particular sort of worry do you mean?”
He asked the question impulsively without realizing how it might sound, coming from a total stranger. The girl’s slim figure stiffened and her chin went up. Then – perhaps something in his expression told her he had not meant to be impertinent – her face cleared.
“The principal one is lack of help,” she explained readily enough, and yet Stratton got a curious impression, somehow, that this wasn’t really the worst of her troubles. “We’re awfully short-handed.” She hesitated an instant and then went on frankly, “To tell the truth, when you first came in I was hoping you might be looking for a job.”
For an instant Buck had all he could do to conceal his amazement at this extraordinary turn of events.
“You mean I’d stand a chance of being taken on?” he countered, sparring for time.
“Of course! That is – You are a cow-puncher, aren’t you?”
Stratton’s lips twitched slightly.
“I’ve worked around cattle all my life.”
“Then naturally it would be all right. I should be very glad to hire you. Tex Lynch usually looks after all that, but he’s away this afternoon and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t – ” Her quaint air of dignity was marred by a sudden, amused twitch of the lips. “I’m really awfully pleased you did come to me,” she smiled. “He’s been telling me for over two weeks that he couldn’t hire a man for love or money; it’ll be amusing to show him what I’ve done, sitting quietly here at home.”
“That’s all settled, then?” Stratton had been doing some rapid thinking. “You’d like me to start in right away, I suppose? That’ll suit me fine. My name’s Bob Green. If you’ll just explain to Lynch that I’m hired, I’ll go down to the bunk-house and he can put me to work when he comes back.”
With a slight bow, he was moving away when Miss Thorne stopped him.
“Wait!” she cried. “Why, you haven’t said a word about wages.”
Buck turned back, biting his lip and inwardly cursing himself for his carelessness.
“I s’posed it would be the usual forty dollars,” he explained.
“We pay that for new hands,” the girl informed him in some surprise. She sat down beside the table and opened her book. “I can put you down for forty, I suppose, and then Tex will tell me what it ought to be after he’s seen you work. Green, did you say?”
“Robert Green.”
“And the address?”
Buck scratched his head.
“I don’t guess I’ve got any,” he returned. “I used to punch cows in Texas, but I’ve been away two years and a half, and the last outfit I was with has sold out to farmers.”
“Oh!”
