"Stella!" she cried. "I'm so awfully glad to see you."
There were kisses and renewed embracings; the young man was greeted more decorously but with almost equal warmth, and then suddenly Miss Thorne turned to Stratton, who stood back a little, struggling between a longing to escape and an equally strong desire to find out a little more about this attractive but startling reminder of his unknown past.
"I had no idea you knew Miss Manning," she said, with the faintest hint of stiffness in her manner.
Buck swallowed hard but was saved from further embarrassment by the girl.
"Oh, yes!" she said brightly. "We came home on the same ship. Mr. Green had been wounded, you know, and was under my care. We got to be--great friends."
Was there a touch of meaning in the last two words? Stratton preferred to lay it to his imagination, and was glad of the diversion caused by the introduction of the young man, who proved to be Miss Manning's brother. Buck was not at all impressed by the fellow's handsome face, athletic figure, and immaculate clothes. The clothes especially seemed ridiculously out of place for even a visitor on a ranch, and he had always detested those dinky half-shaved mustaches.
Meanwhile the trunks had been carried in and the team led away, and Pedro was peevishly complaining from the kitchen door that dinner was getting cold. Buck learned that the visitors were from Chicago, where they had been close friends of the Thorne family for years, and then he managed to break away and join the fellows in the kitchen.
During the meal there was a lot of more or less quiet joking on the subject of Stratton's acquaintance with the lady, which he managed to parry rather cleverly. As a matter of fact the acute horror he felt at the very thought of the truth about himself getting out, quickened his wits and kept him constantly on his guard. He kept his temper and his head, explaining calmly that Miss Manning had been one of the nurses detailed to look after the batch of wounded men of whom he had been one. Naturally he had seen considerable of her during the long and tedious voyage, but there were one or two others he liked equally well.
His careless manner seemed to convince the men that there was no particular amusement to be extracted from the situation, and to Buck's relief they passed on to a general discussion of strangers on a ranch, the bother they were, and the extra amount of work they made.