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.

CHAPTER XVI

HOW KALMAN FOUND HIS MINE

The girl’s enthusiasm for her new-found friend was such that the whole party decided to accept his invitation.  And so they did, spending a full day and night on the ranch, exploring, under French’s guidance, the beauty spots, and investigating with the greatest interest, especially on Miss Marjorie’s part, the farming operations, over which Kalman was presiding.

That young man, in dumb and abashed confusion of face, strictly avoided the party, appearing only at meals.  There, while he made a brave show, he was torn between the conflicting emotions of admiration of the easy nonchalance and self-possession with which Jack played the host, and of furious rage at the air of proprietorship which Mr. Edgar Penny showed towards Miss Marjorie.  Gladly would he have crushed into a shapeless pulp the ruddy, chubby face of that young man.  Kalman found himself at times with his eyes fixed upon the very spot where his fingers itched to grip that thick-set neck, but in spite of these passing moments of fury, the whole world was new to him.  The blue of the sky, the shimmer of the lake, the golden yellow of the poplars, all things in earth and heaven, were shining with a new glory.  For him the day’s work had no weariness.  He no longer trod the solid ground, but through paths of airy bliss his soul marched to the strains of celestial music.