"Thank you. And how do you know she doesn't scare or rattle?"
He evaded the question. "I don't think she would."
"Why didn't you ever mention her before?"
"Never thought of it. I hadn't the least notion that Mrs. Wade was coming, let alone Miss Burnaby. You see, it puts me up against it. I'll be ever so much obliged if you'll help me out."
"I'll come over and arrange things in the rooms, of course," Sheila acquiesced.
And so, when Casey awaited the coming of the train which bore his guests, it was with the knowledge that his rough-and-tumble, quarters had been made as presentable as possible.
Wade and his party descended, attended by an obsequious porter laden with bags, and in a moment Casey was shaking hands.
"And so this is your country!" said Mrs. Wade eying her surroundings rather dubiously. In her heart she was appalled at the prospect of passing several weeks in such a place.
"Well, some of it isn't mine," he laughed. "I wish it were. This is only the makings, Mrs. Wade. Wait a few years. Now, here's what we do. We have dinner at the hotel. Afterward we drive out to the ranch where you are all to stay."
Wade and his wife protested. They couldn't think of it. Clyde said nothing. Casey appealed to her.
"What do you say Miss Burnaby? Will you brave the discomforts of a shack in the dry belt?"
"I'm in the hands of my friends," she laughed.
"That includes me," said Casey. "Everything's fixed for you. This is my stamping ground, and I'm boss. What I say goes." He introduced Mr. Quilty, who was hovering in the background, and chuckled as that garrulous gentleman proceeded to unwind an apparently endless welcome.
"Pure gold," said Casey, and created a diversion. He helped Quilty deposit the bags in the station.
"Thon's a fine gyurrl," said the latter, with a jerk of his thumb toward the platform."
"Oh, trust a quiet devil like yourself to pick wan out," said the little station agent. "I was the same meself, whin I was more younger nor what I am now. I fell dead in love with a fine, big gyurrl be th' name iv--iv--dom'd if I don't forget the name iv her, onless it was Mary or Josephine--no, thim came afther. What th' divil are ye laughin' at? Annyways, me an' this gyurrl that I loved that I forget the name iv, was strollin' wan night be moonlight, d'ye see me, now? And we come to where there was a stump risin' maybe two fut clear iv th' ground--ye'll wonder what th' stump had to do wid ut, but listen--and I stopped and put me arrm around her waist--or tried to; for a fine circumferenshus waist she had. Faix, a wan-arrmed man'd've been up against it intirely wid her--and I sez to her, 'Lena'--that was her name, Lena, I remimber now, and she was a Swede--'Lena,' I sez, 'luk at the moon!' 'Ay see him,' she sez. 'Turn yer sweet face a little more to the southeast,' I sez, that bein' to'rd the stump I mintioned before; an' when I had her at the right angle I made a lep up on the stump and kissed her. Faix, and the same was a forced play, me bein' the height I am, and her over six fut. 'I love yez,' I sez; 'say yez love me!'"