"By gad, she's a beauty, Arthur, my deah boy, and she sits her horse perfectly."
"She's an American," remarked the young man, aggressively.
"She's beautiful enough to be English," retorted the earl, warmly. He spurred forward and rode at her right hand. The Honorable Arthur rather sulkily closed up on the left.
"I was just saying to Arthur, Miss Ogden, that he could go on the round-up and jolly welcome as long as you have promised to show me the country. I am most deeply interested in our Canadian possessions, you know," said the earl.
She shot him a glance from under the black lashes of her gray eyes which made the Earl of Rigby fairly gasp.
"I shall try my best to keep your lordship from being bored while Mr. St. John is away," she said, sweetly.
It was two weeks later, or to be perfectly exact, two weeks and four days later, that a half-breed was sent down to the Morgan round-up, twenty-five miles west of Calgary, with a telegram for St. John. The Honorable Arthur was so dirty, tired, dusty, and sunburnt that the half-breed had difficulty in picking him out from the rest of the dirty, tired, dusty, and sunburnt round-up crew.
The sight of the telegram filled the young man with an indefinable fear, and the paper fluttered in his trembling hand like a withered leaf on a windshaken bough.
"Meet the 2:40 from Macleod at Calgary. Will be on train. Most important.
His swollen tongue and parched lips got drier, his cracked and tanned skin paled as he read and reread the message. Suddenly a joyous thought came to him. "The old boy's relented sure, and wants me to go back with him," he told himself over and over. He thrust his few things into the one portmanteau he had brought with him and made such good time going the twenty-five miles into Calgary that he had been pacing up and down the station platform for ten minutes when the train pulled in.
The Earl of Rigby, who had been hanging over the vestibule rail of the observation car, swung himself lightly down and cordially grasped his son's hand. The Honorable Arthur was struck afresh by the good looks and youthfulness of his aristocratic father.
"By Jove, Arthur, I'm glad to see you got my telegram, and I'm glad you got here in time. What? No, you won't need your portmanteau. The truth is," he gave an infectious laugh, "the Countess of Rigby--she was Miss Lily Ogden until last night, my deah boy--and I are on our way to England, and we couldn't leave the country without seeing you again. Won't you step into the coach and speak to her?"