"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?"
"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."