I came over
here to acquire a little information. How came you away up here by your
lonesome, and what brought your father and old Hans----"
Her purple-shaded eyes widened, each one a question-mark.
"Who told you that Hans was up North? I know I didn't mention him," she
cut in quickly. "Have you seen them?"
It's a wonder my face didn't betray the fact that I was holding
something back. I know I must have looked guilty for a second. That was
a question I would gladly have passed up, but her eyes demanded an
answer.
"Well," I protested, "it occurred to me that if you expected to meet
your father here in a day or two, Rutter would naturally be with him,
seeing that they've paddled in the same canoe since a good many years
before you were born, my lady. What jarred you all loose from Texas? And
what the mischief did you do to MacRae that he quit the South next
spring after I did, and straightway went to soldiering in this
country?"
She shied away from that query, just as I expected. "We had oceans of
trouble after you left there, Sarge," she told me, turning her head from
me so that her gaze wandered over the barrack-square. "It really doesn't
make pleasant telling, but you'll understand better than some one that
didn't know the country. You remember Dick Feltz, and that old trouble
about the Conway brand that dad bought a long time back?"
I nodded; I remembered Mr.
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