"Pleasant evening, what?" he observed. He grinned.

"I didn't know you were back."

"Just got in the other night, and intended to look you up to-morrow."

"Do it, anyway."

"I wanted to ask you if you could do with another man on your ranch?"

"Not till spring."

"Wages secondary object. Primary one a Christian home for an honest but
inexperienced young man whose funds are not what they should be."

"Who is he?"

"His full name is Eustace William Fitzroy Chetwood. But he would answer
to 'Bill.'"

"You?" Angus exclaimed. "You're joking."

"Not a bit of it. I have the best of reasons for asking. Tell you about
them some time. To-night is my last night of the gay life. Thought I
might win a little money, but instead of that I lost. I am an applicant
for work."

"You're welcome. I can't pay much, but the meals come regularly."

"That's very good of you," Chetwood acknowledged. "I'll move my traps
out to-morrow."

CHAPTER XIX

INTRODUCING MRS. FOLEY

That spring, as soon as the frost was out of the ground, Angus did his
promised work for Faith Winton, while a couple of carpenters ran up a
cottage, stable and outbuilding. With this extra work, Angus was more
than busy. The Frenches did nothing to help. They seemed to regard the
girl's actions as folly of which the sooner she was cured the better.

"I am getting a companion, an old friend of mine," Faith told Angus one
day as the cottage neared completion. "It may be cowardly, but I don't
want to live here alone."

"Of course it would be lonesome," he agreed. "It will be nice for you to
have a girl friend."

She stared at him for a moment and laughed. "Oh, very nice. We'll move
in some time next week."

A week passed and another, and Angus, though he had heard that the new
ranch was occupied, had had no opportunity to visit it. Then one evening
he saddled Chief and rode over.

He saw smoke rising from the chimney, and when he dismounted and
ascended the steps he heard a strange swishing and thumping, accompanied
by a melancholy moaning which put him in mind of a dog scratching a sore
ear. Wondering what on earth the racket was about, he knocked.

The noise ceased, heavy footsteps utterly unlike Faith Winton's crossed
the floor, the door opened and a strange lady confronted him. She was
short, but extremely broad of beam. Her hair, streaked with gray, had
once been a fiery red. She had keen, aggressive blue eyes, a short,
turned-up nose,