第70章 CHAPTER XV THE MAIDEN OF THE BROWN HAIR(5)

"Money?" cried her Aunt. "What is the use of money in this country? No, your father has it all."

"Why," suddenly exclaimed her niece, "it's not the man after all."

"What man are you talking about?" enquired her Aunt. "What man is it not?"

"It's a stranger. I mean--it's--another man," said Marjorie, distinct disappointment in her tone.

"Here, who is it, or who is it no'?"

"Oh," said Marjorie innocently. "Mr. Harris is expecting that young man who was here this morning,--the one who saved us from that awful wolf, you know."

"That man! The impudent thing that he was," cried her Aunt. "Wait till I set my eyes on him. Indeed, I will not look at any one belonging to him." Aunt Janet flounced into the tent, leaving her niece to meet the stranger alone.

"Good afternoon! Am I right in thinking that this is the engineer's camp, for which a load of oats was ordered this morning?" Jack French was standing, hat in hand, looking his admiration and perplexity, for Kalman had not told him anything of this girl.

"Yes, this is the camp. At least, I heard Mr. Harris say he expected a load of oats; but," she added in slight confusion, "it was from another man, a young man, the man, I mean, who was here this morning."

"Confusion, indeed!" came a muffled voice from the closed tent.

Jack French glanced quickly around, but saw no one.

"Oh," said Miss Marjorie, struggling with her laughter, "it's my Aunt; she was much alarmed this morning. You see, the wolf and the dogs ran right into her tent. It was terrible."

"Terrible, indeed," said Jack French, with grave politeness. "I could only get the most incoherent account of the whole matter. I hope your Aunt was not hurt."

"Hurt, indeed!" ejaculated a muffled voice. "It was nearer killed, I was."

Upon this, Miss Marjorie ran to the tent door. "Aunt," she cried, lifting up the flap, "you might as well come out and meet Mr.--"

"French, Jack French, as I am known in this free country."

"My Aunt, Miss Menzies."

"Very happy to meet you, madam." Jack's bow was so inexpressibly elegant that Aunt Janet found herself adopting her most gracious, Glasgow society manner.

French was profuse in his apologies and sympathetic regrets, as he gravely listened to Aunt Janet's excited account of her warm adventure. The perfect gravity and the profuse sympathy with which he heard the tale won Aunt Janet's heart, and she privately decided that here, at last, she had found in this wild and terrible country a man in whom she could entirely confide.

Under Miss Marjorie's direction, French unloaded his oats, the girl pouring forth the while a stream of observations, exclamations, and interrogations upon all subjects imaginable, and with such an abandonment of good fellowship that French, for the first time in twenty years, found himself offering hospitality to a party in which ladies were to be found. Miss Menzies accepted the invitation with eager alacrity.

"Oh! it will be lovely, won't it, Aunt Janet? We have not yet seen a real ranch, and besides," she added, "we have no money to pay for our oats."

"That matters not at all," said French; "but if your Aunt will condescend to grace with her presence my poor bachelor's hall, we shall be most grateful."

Aunt Janet was quite captivated, and before she knew it, she had accepted the invitation for the party.

"Oh, good!" cried Miss Marjorie in ecstasy; "we shall come to-morrow, Mr. French."

And with this news French drove back to the ranch, to the disgust of old Mackenzie, who dreaded "women folks," and to Kalman's alternating delight and dismay. That short visit had established between the young girl and Jack French a warm and abiding friendship that in a more conventional atmosphere it would have taken years to develop. To her French realized at once all her ideals of what a Western rancher should be, and to French the frank, fresh innocence of her unspoiled heart appealed with irresistible force. They had discovered each other in that single hour.