ORKE, Captain of the Honolulu Mounted Police and nothing of anything anywhere else, so far as men knew, was in a bad temper. From dawn until this five of the clock on a windy evening, he had been in the saddle along the dusty, little-trod trails that give out from the main roads tapping the mountain wildernesses, and all his tact and reputation, all his wise knowledge of native language and honor and beliefs had not given him the information that he was looking for. He would get it, of course, as he always did, just through his sheer inability to know when he was beaten, but time was short, and for the present there seemed no open way to him.
Then he topped the hill that led down by steep zig-zag grades to the town, took in all that the view presented to him with a quick, practiced glance, and swore, curtly and efficiently, as he did most things. There was a girl in the middle of the broad road that was swamped yellow with sunset. She wore a white riding-habit, and with some inadequate weapon, presumably a hairpin, she was trying to dig a stone out of her mare's off hind-foot.
Yorke's lips set together sharply. He had never seen the girl before; but he knew the mare for one of Southwark's best. and knew that there were no stones above the strip of new shingling just put in a half-mile lower down.
“Must have had it in these ten minutes, poor brute. And the girl'd never notice, of course. Well, that kind o' thing does make me feel sick. Serve Southwark right if she's lamed for good. Now—I suppose—”
He kicked his colt into a sharp trot, came up in a cloud of dust, and dropped off against the mare's quarter.
“Best let me have a go at that,” he said, and took the foot into his hands straightway.
The girl stood up in swift anger, and the hot blood flushed her face. But Yorke did not see. He was feeling for his pocket farrier-case, jerking out the instrument he wanted, and getting a purchase for the coming struggle with the hock well-braced against the inside of his forearm. A three-cornered lump of road-metal was jammed between the frog and the caulk of the shoe, and the mare winced as Yorke bore on it.
“Steady, pet,” he said, soothingly. “Whoa-a, then, Donna. Poor old girl, you have had a doing.”
Tenderly, dexterously, he pried out the metal but the effort brought sweat to hands and face, and the girl saw the strong muscles spring up along the back of his stooped neck.
“There, honey,” he said, and let the foot down gently. But the mare flinched from her weight on it, and stood, shivering.
Yorke packed away his case in silence. He dared not speak. Like most men whose work lies among horses he loved them, and in sight of what he termed “a piece of condemned brutality” he sorrowed that the culprit was not a man.
The girl's wrath had grown with the minutes. Now she spoke:
“If I am not interrupting your monologue perhaps you will permit me to ask a question. Can I ride home on her?”
Yorke's temper suddenly overleapt its control.
“I wouldn't,” he said. “Perhaps you might.”
The tone stung more than the words. The girl faced him, thrusting back her broad hat, and the flame of her fury met Yorke's cold anger.
“You are the rudest man!” she cried. “The rudest and the horridest man I ever saw! How dare you speak to me like that! How dare you! How dare you!”
For the first time Yorke looked at her squarely. He had seen a hundred prettier girls in his time, and he had never before seen one who screamed at him, and stamped her foot, when, by all the laws of the game and womanhood, she should have been dissolved in humble tears. This was the reason—he discovered it when he figured the matter out later—why he knew, in one lightning-flash of conviction, that the little angry-eyed vixen in the road-center was just the one girl in the world for him.
He laughed, suddenly forgetful of the suffering mare.
“Don't get mad,” he said. “Please don't. I've acted like a dog, of course, but—but I didn't know it was you, you know.”
The girl eyed him distrustfully.
“You don't know it's me,” she said. “Who am I, then?”
Yorke laughed again.
“I don't know your name. That doesn't matter—yet. But I mean—I could go and chase myself because I was so rude to you. I—I'm very fond of horses, you see. That's no excuse, of course. But I—I—do beg your pardon.”
“I didn't know the stone was there at first. Truly I didn't.”
“Of course you didn't,” said Yorke. “How should you? I might not—” He balked at the lie and changed it. “Would you like to get up on my colt? He's an ill-conditioned beast, but he's had a good bit of the devil taken out of him to-day. I'll lead Donna home.”