didn't know how she would take it, "I'm going to tell you something on
my own responsibility, and you mustn't get the idea that I'm trying to
mix into your personal affairs without a warrant. But I have a hunch
that you're laboring under a mistaken impression, right now; that is, if
you care anything about an old friend like MacRae."

"I can't really say that I do, though," she assured me quickly, but she
colored in a way that convinced me that her feeling toward MacRae was of
the sort she would never admit to any one but himself.

"Well," I continued, "I imagined you would think it queer that he should
pass you up as he did a while ago. But here at Fort Walsh we're among a
class of people that are a heap different from Texas cow-punchers. These
redcoats move along social lines that don't look like much to a cowman;
but once in the Force you must abide by them. It was consideration for
you that forbade MacRae to stop. Any woman in the company of an officer
is taboo to an enlisted man, according----"

"I know all that," she interrupted impatiently. "Probably they'd cut me,
and all that sort of thing. I understand their point of view, exactly,
but I'm not here to play the social game, and I shall talk to whom it
pleases me. Do you or Gordon MacRae honestly believe I care a snap for
their petty conventions?"

"No, I know you better than that," I responded. "All the same, this is a
pretty rough country for a woman, and if you've made friends among the
people on top, they may come in handy. For that matter," I concluded,
"you won't get a chance to have the cold shoulder turned to you for
associating with MacRae; not for some time, anyway."