All the time he was speaking, Hannington was eating ravenously but with the ease and daintiness of one whose table manners were an eternal part of him.

"The rawncher met me at the station with two horses. Not a blessed wagon or a thing to carry my luggage did the bounder have. It is lying at the station yet;—at least it was last time I called in there. The fellow took my five hundred dollars, then took me twenty miles up over these everlasting hills. A thousand miles in the bally wilderness!

"Of course, you know, Phil, I will admit I was deuced raw."

Phil laughed. DeRue Hannington's good nature asserted itself and he laughed, too.

After a while, he went on.

"This rawnching Johnnie's name was Duff. You don't happen to know him?"

Phil shook his head.

"Well,—he put me in the charge of Mrs. Duff, and she set me to paring potatoes, washing the floors, scouring pots and pans, wringing clothes and all that sort of rot; till, one day, I just said to Duff that I'd come West to rawnch, not to skivvy.

"Of course, I'll admit, I didn't know an apple tree from a cauliflower, but, damme, I was game to learn, Phil. Don't you think I did right to jolly-well remonstrate?"

"You certainly did!"

Thus encouraged, DeRue Hannington continued:

"He then put me to digging, and digging, and digging, till the cows came home, then to weeding, and weeding, and weeding, miles and miles of rows and rows of beastly carrots and things until I can't look an honest carrot in the face or a potato in the eye without feeling faint.

"I really didn't seem to be learning anything, but I stuck it gamely until three days ago, when Mr. and Mrs. Duff went off to visit a neighbour five miles up the Valley. They left me to look after the blooming squawking baby. That just got me real mad, so when it started in to bawl, I sat down and wrote a note saying I was through. I pinned it to the baby,—and, here I am.

"Don't you think I did the right thing?"

"You bet!" answered Phil, striving hard to suppress his bubbling merriment.

"They cawn't make me serve my three years out, can they, Phil?" queried DeRue Hannington, anxiously.

"Not they! Why, all they wanted was your five hundred dollars. They'll be glad to be quit of you."

The Englishman perked up.

"They're welcome to the money. But I'm not through rawnching, you know. You see I've got the worst over now and I'm feeling quite a Westerner. You don't happen to know anyone who has a good rawnch for sale?—one with a decent sort of a house and stables, and lots of fruit trees on it. I've got the money in the bank, you know, and could pay cash for it. I really think I could run a rawnch now."

"No,—I haven't the slightest idea!" returned Phil. "But it shouldn't be a hard job getting a ranch, if you have the money. There are always lots of people ready to sell goods for cash. Take my advice, though; don't be in too great a hurry."

Phil rose to go.

DeRue Hannington followed him to the saloon, where Phil shook hands and left him.

As he passed out at the door he heard the voice of the stranger raised above the general conversation of the saloon.

"Excuse me, but have any of you good fellows any idea where a chap could buy a good rawnch for cash?"

Phil threw up his hands in despair and walked on, knowing that Percival DeRue Hannington had still a lot to learn about ranching and about those who had ranches to sell.



CHAPTER VII

Wild Man Hanson Goes Wild

Jim Langford was waiting for Phil at Mrs. Clunie's.

"Where the Sam Hill have you been, Phil? I've been looking for you everywhere. Got a job yet?"

"No,—not even the scent of one!"

"Want one?"

"You bet!"

"Hard work and start to-morrow?"

"Sure thing! Where is it? what is it? who is it? Tell me quick! I'm aching to work for real money, for more reasons than one."

"Royce Pederstone, the blacksmith, is quitting being an active blacksmith any more. He is putting Wildman Hanson in charge, and Hanson's job is going a-begging."

"Wildman Hanson! That sounds good for a start, Jim."

"And it's as good as it sounds, too, young fellow, my lad. I'm not going to tell you anything about his 'wildman' tricks. You'll find that out for yourself in good time. But he's a crackerjack blacksmith and can show you all of the trade that is worth showing."

"I haven't the strength to be a smith."

"Not now;—but you have the frame and you've got to build on it.

"The job's worth twenty dollars a week to start, and it's yours for the taking. I did the asking from Hanson this morning. Are you on?"

"Of course I'm on."

"All right!—six o'clock to-morrow morning at Pederstone's shop, one block down the hill and two blocks to the left."

Langford chuckled.

"What are you grinning at?" asked Phil.

"Oh,—just thinking what you'll be able to do with that rusty-headed, son-of-a-gun McGregor after a month or two under Hanson."

"Thanks! I've had some McGregor, and I'm not greedy. I'm not at all anxious for more."

"What? See here, Phil,—you've got to beat that lobster stiff if it takes you a year. It took me all I knew to turn the trick, and I had to keep off drink for six months to do it, but there was something inside of me that just wouldn't stay quiet till I licked the stuffing out of him. He's a bully. He's the craftiest, sneakiest, most underhand skunk in the Valley. He's at the bottom of most of the trouble with cattle and feed hereabout, but he's too damned wary to be caught.

"I'm surprised at the Mayor having anything to do with him. But, of course, the Mayor's a cattleman himself, and, give Rob Roy McGregor his due, there isn't a better man on stock this side of Calgary."

"And I've to go blacksmithing with the set purpose of eating this fellow up?"

"No, you're going blacksmithing for the purpose of setting yourself up, you rickle of bones! Licking McGregor can be your side line. When you beat him, you'll know you are in pretty good shape."

"All right,—I'm on!" agreed Phil. "But who is this Royce Pederstone? Why is he giving up his work?"

"Who? why? and wherefore? At times you're a regular bairn for asking questions, but when you're wanted to talk you're as silent as the tomb.

"Royce Pederstone has been here since the flood. He's a good blacksmith, only he never finishes a job. If he is making a gate, he stops at the last rivet and Hanson has to drive it home. If he is shoeing a horse, he forgets a nail. If he is making a fish hook, he omits the barb. It is the same with his land deals; he buys land and, for the time being, forgets he owns it so far as selling again is concerned. Then he buys some more whenever he has the ready cash. It is all working for him,—so he says. He owns more earth than he has any idea of. He doesn't know how much stock he has; doesn't even knows what happens to his farm implements once he pays for them; in some cases doesn't know if they have been delivered to him. Often he finds some of them when the snow goes away in the spring time. There are many things he doesn't know; all the same it isn't safe to take too many chances on what he passes up."

"Then he has got too rich for blacksmithing?"

"Not he! Royce Pederstone is not that kind of a man, Phil. He is just too busy. He is going to be the next member of parliament from the Valley. Watch and see!

"The new election comes off in three months' time. Last week the Association met to elect their representative. Some were for Barrington of Armstrong, others for Brenchfield the Mayor. They couldn't agree. Royce Pederstone was chairman of the meeting. At midnight they were as far off a decision as ever. Someone proposed John Royce Pederstone, and it carried without a dissenting voice.

"He's a cracking good man, is Pederstone, on the platform. He is straight, honest and more or less of a farmer. Ben Todd, the editor, is hand and glove with him, so he will have The Vernock and District Advertiser at his back.

"The old government is sure to be kicked out of office, if only to give the people a change; so, who is going to keep Royce Pederstone from being the Valley's representative at Victoria, I should like to know?"

"And that's why he's stepping out of the blacksmith's shop?" put in Phil.

"Yes!—that's the why, boy."

Next morning at six o'clock Phil, in the company of Jim Langford, presented himself at Pederstone's forge.

"Hullo!" cried Jim, "that's funny. Not open yet!"

The front door was heavily barred across. They went to the back entrance. It also was firmly secured.

Langford shielded his face with his hand and peered through the narrow, barred windows.

"Well, I'll be darned!" he exclaimed. "And on your first morning, too! Hard luck, Phil!"

"Why,—what is it?"

"Oh, nothing much! Only I fancy you're going to see why your new boss is called Wildman Hanson.

"Look in there."

Phil did so.

"What did you see?"

Phil puckered his face in disgust.

"Not much wildman there," he remarked. "As far as I can see Hanson is sound asleep on a pile of coke. There are two empty bottles at his side. Seems to me he might be dead drunk."

"That's what he is, too."

"Then let's go in and throw a bucket of water over him and wake him up."

"Not on your life! Then there would be a funeral. I guess you had better postpone your start till to-morrow. Only one man in Vernock can handle Hanson after he's had a night of it, and that man's the Mayor. Man to man, Hanson has him shaded. With a rope in his hand, the Mayor is the best man."

Voices behind them made them turn round.

Royce Pederstone and Mayor Brenchfield were riding down the side road as if on some definite bent. They were equipped as for a round-up.

"How do, Jim! Is this Hanson's new apprentice?" asked Pederstone, bending over his horse and shaking hands genially with Phil.

"Glad to meet you, young man, and sorry this has happened on your first day. Hanson only goes on the toot once in a long while. You must just forget what you are going to see in a few minutes and think later only of what he shows you of blacksmithing."

Brenchfield completely ignored Phil's presence.

The two men got off their horses.

Royce Pederstone turned the water on at the tap at the trough, to which a hose was already attached. He directed the nozzle through a broken window pane, squirting a thin, strong stream directly on the upturned face of the open-mouthed and heavily-breathing Swede.

With a grunt the huge fellow spread himself.

The Mayor jerked off the water, then he and Royce Pederstone sprang on their horses and took up positions at different sides of the yard.

Jim and Phil in curiosity kept their eyes glued to the dirty window.

Growling fiercely, Hanson scrambled to his feet. His usually handsome and childlike face was contorted with rage and horrible to see. His eyes, bloodshot and bleared, stood out wildly in his head, his teeth showed like the teeth of a snarling puma and a foamy lather slithered from his mouth down on to his huge, hairy, muscle-heaving chest. He stood over six feet—a man of gigantic proportions, with every inch of him tuned and in perfect symmetry.

But he seemed madness incarnate.

With a fierce oath, he wiped the water from his face. He staggered and bumped into an anvil, striking his knee against the metal. He swore again and, in his mounting anger, he seized the anvil in his great hands, lifted it bodily from its stand and heaved it into a corner—a feat which four strong men, at any time, would have experienced difficulty in performing.

"Great Caesar!" whispered Phil in awe.

"After a booze, he's as strong as a railway engine," returned Jim, "and he goes plumb daffy. Murder or anything else doesn't matter a hill of beans to him at a time like this."

"That sounds exceedingly pleasant."

"Pshaw!—you needn't mind. You'll know in lots of time, for he's happy and gentle as a lark when he's really boozing. It is only when he wakes up the morning after—after a ten hours' sleep—that the fun begins.

"He killed a horse once with his bare hands. Got on its back and strangled it somehow. He half-killed the old Police Chief. He got a year in jail for that. They were going to send him to an asylum afterwards, but he was such a fine workman and so decent at an ordinary time, that Royce Pederstone and the Mayor gave their guarantees and promised to attend to him any time he tried his monkey-doodle business again."

Meantime, Hanson walked over to the front door and tested it. Then he came toward the back one.

"Run!" shouted Langford, suiting prompt action to his word.

Phil remained a moment or two longer, trusting to his nimbleness of foot for emergency.

He saw Hanson stoop and pick up a great, heavy, sledge, then spring madly to the back door, swinging the big hammer above his head. With a shivering crash the woodwork splintered.

Phil turned to run.

Another great crash and the whole door and its fastenings tumbled outward, and that giant piece of infuriated humanity stood looking about him, framed in the broken woodwork.

Phil heard a warning shout, as he rushed headlong.

But his toe caught on an iron girder and he came down heavily on his face. As he sprang to his feet again he heard further shouting all about him. He turned his head. Hanson was springing toward him and making on him with a speed Phil could not realise in a man so weighty; a speed he could not begin to emulate.

The great hairy hands were almost on his coat, when something happened.

He staggered, balanced himself and stood up sheepishly.

Hanson was on the ground, struggling, cursing and kicking viciously at a rope which Royce Pederstone had cast smartly round his left foot.

Pederstone tugged with all his strength, and his horse lent her weight, but together they could do no more than hold their own with the fallen Vulcan. Hanson brought out a clasp-knife from his clothes, opened it and slashed at the rope. He had it almost cut through, when Brenchfield, who had been sitting on his horse an inactive and silent spectator—in response to Pederstone's urgent call, whirled his rope around his head several times and dropped it deftly over Hanson's shoulders, pinning his arms helplessly to his side.

Brenchfield then tugged in one direction and Royce Pederstone in the other, each tying the end of his rope tightly to a stake at his side of the yard, with the result that the madman was half hamstrung and reduced to impotence.

Langford came round the side of the building with fresh ropes. These were quickly bound round Hanson, until he was unable to move hand or foot, although he still struggled violently, the veins in his neck and head standing out in blue knots, the perspiration running over his shapely forehead and the frothy slither again oozing from his lips.

"Say, Graham!—what went wrong? Why didn't you rope him? Thought you said you would take first throw."

"Did I?" asked Brenchfield calmly.

"Sure you did! It might have been a serious accident. It isn't often you make a forget like that, old man."

"Oh, pshaw!—what's the odds anyway? Everything was all right."

"Was—yes! But it might have been all day with the new man."

"No chance! I had that cinched. Anyway, he had no right dawdling at the window as long as he did."

"Here, you two scrapping schoolboys—forget it!" interposed Langford. "I fancy Phil knows how to look after himself without either of you."

On the instructions of Pederstone, the four men carried the trussed Hanson into a nearby stable, where they made him fast with fresh ropes to some heavy stanchions.

When all was secure, Hanson was left to regain his normal, Pederstone turning the key in the lock for further security.

"Guess that's all this time, Ped," said Brenchfield.

"All through—thanks, Graham!" returned Pederstone, and Brenchfield rode off in deep thought. As a blacksmith, the Mayor felt that Phil was easy and safe for him, although he did not like the intimacy that seemed to have sprung up so soon between Phil and Jim Langford, for Langford was a strange composite, capable of anything or nothing; clever; altogether an unknown quantity, but one well worth the watching closely.

"Do you want Phil to-day now this has happened?" asked Jim of Royce Pederstone.

"Sure thing!—if he hasn't changed his mind about working?"

"Not me!" answered Phil.

"All right!" said Jim. "Me for the Court House. I'm only a couple of hours late now. See you later, Phil!"

Royce Pederstone went into the forge, doffed his coat, rolled up his sleeves and put on his leather apron.

Phil followed suit with an apron of Hanson's, and soon the doors were wide open, the fires blowing and the anvil ringing, drowning the groans and shouts that came from Hanson as he lay like a trussed fowl in the adjoining stable.

"I'm sorry this has taken place on the first day of your apprenticeship, young man, but it has been pending for some time. After this is over, you won't be afraid to be left with Hanson, I hope. He'll be all right in a few hours, and very much ashamed of himself you will find him."

"I'm not afraid," said Phil. "I am just beginning to discover that fear is the greatest devil we have to contend with and that the less we worry about it the less real and the more a mere bogey it becomes."

"True for you, Phil. And the older you grow the more you'll realise the wisdom of what you say.

"Well, it is just a year since Hanson had his last drinking bout. I was beginning to think he had got completely over it. He is not likely to break out again for ever so long."

"What is it exactly that gets him?" asked Phil.

"Oh,—likes drink once in a while, but drink doesn't like him;—that's all. It goes to his brain somehow. Do you think you could manage him if he took you unawares?"

"I could try," answered Phil.

"That's the way to talk. And you've got the frame to work on, too. Can you throw a rope?"

"I used to when I was a kid. I guess, with a little practice, I still could do it pretty well."

"Well,—practise in your spare time. It is handy to be able to throw a rope in this Valley. And it doesn't cost anything carrying the ability about with you. Can you use your fists?"

"Yes!—tolerably well."

"Good for you! Now all you need is to be able to use your head and everything will be O. K."

All that day, Royce Pederstone worked like the real village blacksmith he was; shoeing horses, repairing farm implements, bolting, riveting and welding; showing Phil all he could in the short time he had with him, telling him—because it was uppermost in his mind—just a little of his electioneering plans and what he intended doing for the Okanagan Valley in the way of irrigation, railroads and public buildings; instilling in his apprentice an enthusiasm for his new work and making for himself at the same time another friend and political booster; for Phil was quick to appreciate the kindliness of this sturdy, pioneering type of man and he felt drawn to him by that strange, attractive sub-conscious essence which flows from all who are born to lead, an hypnotic current which is one of the first essentials of all men who can ever hope successfully to carry out any good or big undertaking for, or with, their fellow men; the ability with the triple qualities—to interest, to attract, to hold,—making one feel that it is good to be within the dominant influence, if only for a time.

And all day long, in the barn at the rear of the smithy, Wildman Hanson kept up his groaning, and moaning, and cursing; shouting at the top of his voice that he was being murdered, and threatening a separate strangling to half a dozen men whom he called by name, talking to them as if they were by his side.

Towards closing time, a brilliant burst of evening sunshine flooded the smithy, and with it came one whose radiating charm made the sun for a moment slide back to second place.

"Hullo, dad!" she cried. "I thought you weren't going to work here any more?"

"Hullo, Eilie! I thought so, too, but——Oh, Eileen, this is Phil."

Eileen Pederstone looked in admonishing surprise at her father.

"I beg pardon! Mr. Ralston, our new man,—my daughter, Miss Eileen!"

The young lady bowed sedately to Phil, who was standing a mere dark silhouette against the glare of the furnace fire. But Eileen was in the full glow of the flames and, as Phil looked into her face, he gasped for breath and his heart commenced to thump under his open shirt.

It was the face of the good samaritan, the good fairy that had of late so often been pictured in his mind in the day-time, the face that smiled to him at night through his dreams.

In a flash, he saw himself again; bearded, unkempt, ragged, faint and hunted, groping for support against the wall of the little kitchen in the bungalow up on the hill; the sweet vision of the fearless maid whose heart had opened in practical sympathy to his broken appeal for succour, her ready response and——

But he pushed his crowding thoughts away, for he was standing before her—pale, mute and almost foolish.

He bowed, not daring to raise his eyes to hers lest she should recognise him. But he need not have feared on that score, for to her he was merely the clean-cut outline of a shadow;—but even had it not been so, the difference between the young, beardless man before her and the haggard, broken convict whom she had befriended that night was greater by far than Phil even could have imagined.

Fortunately for his peace of mind, a sudden cry from the stable burst in on the momentary quietness.

Eileen turned her head quickly, then she ran over to her father anxiously and held his arms.

"Dad,—what is that?"

"Hush, dearie!—it's Hanson."

"But—but where is he?" she asked.

"In the barn, tied up good and tight,—quite safe."

"But it isn't right, daddy, to tie a man up like that. He's not a beast, and he's a kind-hearted decent fellow when he is well."

"When he is well, Eilie,—yes! But he isn't well. Better for him that we tie him up for a day every once in a while, than confine him in a lunatic asylum for the term of his natural life. That is what would have to be otherwise."

"Don't you think he might be better now, daddie?" she pleaded.

"Yes!—I guess he is getting pretty nearly wised up now. He has stopped his swearing and yelling. That's a good sign. That last cry of his was the first for half an hour. You run along home, girlie, and Phil and I will go in and see how he is."

"You won't keep him tied up there all night, dad?"

"Not unless I can't help it, Eilie."

She pouted and stamped her foot impatiently.

"I just won't go home till you tell me for sure. I couldn't sleep if I thought a man was roped up all night like he is now."

Her father smiled indulgently.

"Foolish little woman! You sleep other nights, yet every minute of the days and nights you live there are men all over the world who, both literally and metaphorically, are chained, and roped, and lashed, and dungeoned; men whose lives are a racking agony, to whom day and night are alike—all night—men who have no prospect of relief to-morrow, whose only release is death, and the release they long and pray for seems never to come. And many of them are men who have done no wrong, unless it be wrong to offend a potentate, to have an opinion of your own, to have the courage to express it; to object to laws and customs which should have been scrapped a thousand years ago.

"Hanson there knows his weakness. He has asked and begged us, in his sober moments, to be sure to do this very thing to him as a personal kindness. To-morrow his heart will be flooding with gratitude to know that he has got through with it without doing anyone any harm."

"Yes, daddie, yes! But won't you go to see if he cannot be released to-night?" she pleaded.

"Sure, girlie, if it will please you. Wait here!"

The sturdy smith took down the key from a nail in the wall and went out.

Eileen switched her attention to Phil.

"Have you been long in the Valley, Mr. Ralston?"

Phil was afraid of his voice, so he answered in a deeper intonation than was his usual.

"Just a few days, miss."

"And you're a blacksmith?"

"Not yet, Miss Pederstone!" Phil grinned to himself and felt slightly more confident. "I hope to be, some day."

Eileen seemed surprised.

"Haven't you been blacksmithing before? Why, my father started to learn his trade when he was fourteen years old."

"Do I seem so terribly old then?" asked Phil.

"Oh, no!—not that exactly, but old to be starting in to learn a trade. Sol Hanson isn't so very much older than you can be, but he has been a journeyman smith ever since I have known him." She stopped. "Oh, I don't know——You mustn't mind what I say, Mr. Ralston. I guess I am a bit of a silly. I let my foolish tongue run away with me at times. I just say what I feel; just what comes to my mind."

"If everyone did that," remarked Phil, "we should have less dissension in the world."

"And we would make lots of enemies," she put in.

"We might offend those we think are our friends, and we might alarm each other by mirroring our tremendous deficiencies, but, in the finish, it would make for sincerity and truthfulness—two qualities of nature sadly in the background nowadays. Don't you agree with me?"

"Of course you are right!" said Eileen, "but you talk so earnestly one would almost imagine that you had suffered at some time through the insincerity and untruthfulness of one you had trusted."

This was getting too near home for Phil.

"None of us have to live very long to do that. I have often thought, though, that if, when we looked into the mirror, we could see our natures as well as our reflected features, our conceit would suffer a severe shock."

"A woman, maybe!" said Eileen, "but nothing can ever cure mortal man of his conceit."

"You think a man more conceited than a woman?"

"Assuredly!"

Phil laughed, and the laugh rang in his own natural tone.

Eileen Pederstone stopped. Her brows wrinkled as if some little chord of memory had suddenly been struck.

Phil also dropped back into an awkward silence.

A noise outside roused both of them, and Royce Pederstone crossed the yard, followed by Hanson. The latter refused to come inside when he knew Miss Pederstone was there.

"Better run home, Eilie,—out the front way!"

"Is he all right, daddy?"

"Yes,—back to normal."

"Oh, I'm so glad. You won't be long?"

"Fifteen minutes!"

"Good night, Mr. Ralston!" she said, scrutinizing him in slight perplexity.

"Good night!" returned Phil, still keeping to the shadows.



CHAPTER VIII

Like Man, Like Horse

With the passing days, Phil found Sol Hanson a man of rugged simplicity, as full of fun and frolic as a child; a man strong as a lion, an excellent blacksmith and, what was more to Phil's advantage, a kind and unselfish teacher who was willing to impart to his willing pupil—as John Royce Pederstone had been—all he knew of his ancient, noble and virile calling.

Phil, with a natural aptitude and a delight in at last doing work of a practical nature, was soon able to shoe a horse, temper and weld iron, bolt and rivet a gate and mend broken farm implements with considerable skill, much to the open-minded and childlike Hanson's pleasure and astonishment.

Phil gloried in the knowledge of returning vigour and in the steadily increasing size and power of his biceps. His bones no longer showed an anxiety to burst through his skin. The tired ache, after a little exertion, was no longer with him. His chest broadened by inches and his body took on the buoyancy and elasticity that were his real birthright, but of which the close confinement of Ukalla had almost robbed him for good.

Jim Langford delighted in this physical change even more than did Phil himself. He insisted on sparring and wrestling with Phil in the evenings; and, when the latter began more and more to hold his own, Jim chuckled and chuckled to himself in anticipation of some amusing future event he knew was sure to come along sooner or later. When these amusements palled, they threw their latent energies into the roping of a post in the long-suffering Mrs. Clunie's orchard, and later the moving and more elusive objects on the ranges.

All this time, Phil saw little or nothing of Mayor Brenchfield, for his were busy days, and Brenchfield's fields of operation were seldom within the confines of the blacksmith shop.

Only once had Eileen Pederstone visited the forge since her father had gone on his electioneering campaign, and that was one afternoon during Phil's dinner hour when she had run in hurriedly to have her horse shod. She was just mounting to ride off as Phil returned, Hanson having attended to her needs. But her bright smile of remembrance and the wave of salutation with her riding crop left something pleasant with Phil that lingered near him till closing time.

The next day he heard casually that she had joined her father on his tour of the Valley. And he heard something else that disturbed him more; although, why it should do so, he could not really understand, for it was no affair of his. He heard that Mayor Brenchfield had been invited—and had accepted the invitation—to attach himself to the Royce Pederstone party in order to give the candidate the support of his fluent tongue and widespread influence.

Somehow Phil resented Brenchfield's apparent friendliness with the Pederstones. To his mind, Eileen Pederstone was too trusting, too straight, and honest, and pure-minded to be even for a little time in the company of a man of the stamp of Brenchfield.

He often wondered at the tremendous wall of protection which Brenchfield seemed to have raised about himself, and he puzzled as to where the breach in that wall might be—for of a breach somewhere he was certain. He wondered who would be first to find it, when it would be likely to be widened and carried. And after his wondering came the hope and the determination that he would be there to lend a hand at the storming of the stronghold.

But these were not consuming desires with Phil. He had a life of work ahead of him; he had lost time to make up; he had ambitions to fulfil; great things to do; there were fortunes to be won by determination, shrewdness and ability, and he was not going to be behind in the winning of one of them.

That was the day Sol Hanson was called out to repair some machinery belonging to The Evaporating Company, leaving Phil alone to run the smithy as best he could.

He had been only a few hours at work when Mayor Brenchfield flung himself from his gigantic thoroughbred and came forward into the shop, smiling amiably.

"Well, Phil!—so you're learning to be a blacksmith. Pretty hard work—isn't it, old man?"

Phil stopped and looked across at him.

When Brenchfield was most pleasant, he knew that was the time for him to be most on his guard.

"It is more honest than some work I could name."

"Poof!—any fool can be a smith. Why don't you get into something worth while?"

"This suits me!"

"You're devilish snappy, Phil. What the hell's the matter with you, anyway? Can't you be civil to Royce Pederstone's customers? Do you want to turn away business?"

"Stick to business and it will be all right. There is nothing outside of that that I want to talk to you about."

Brenchfield threw out his bulky chest and smiled, as he walked toward the back door. Suddenly he wheeled round, put his fingers into his vest pocket and pulled out a piece of blue paper.

"Phil,—aren't you going to let bygones be bygones? I'll make it well worth your while. There's going to be big things doing here and I can put you wise."

To show how little he thought of the suggestion, Phil commenced hammering on his anvil and so drowned Brenchfield's voice.

The latter came over and laid his hand on Phil's arm.

"If you can't stop being foolish, you might at least be mannerly," he commented.

"Yes?"

"Here,—take this!"

"What is it?" asked Phil.

"Look and see!"

Phil took the paper and opened it out. It was a cheque for fifteen hundred dollars.

"What's this for?"

Brenchfield threw out his arm casually. "Just to let bygones be bygones!"

"No other tags on it, eh?" asked Phil dubiously.

"Not a damned tag!"

Phil held it in his hand as if weighing the matter over, while Brenchfield watched him narrowly.

"Here's its twin brother, Phil!"

He handed another cheque over. It was for fifteen hundred dollars also.

"And this one? What's it for?"

"That's to get out of here on to-morrow's train and to stay out."

"Uhm!" answered Phil. "That makes three thousand dollars."

Brenchfield's face took on a little more confidence. He knew the temptation proffered money held for the average man. Only, he forgot that he was not dealing in averages with Phil Ralston.

"I've one more—a sort of big brother!" he remarked, handing over cheque number three.

Phil opened it up and whistled.

"Pheugh! Seven—thousand—dollars! Coming up, eh? This must be the price of suicide or a murder, Graham."

The Mayor frowned, but he held rein on his temper.

"That's for a little piece of paper in cipher. It is more than you'll save all your life."

Phil put the three cheques neatly together, folded them up and went over to the furnace. He placed them between some glowing coals and pushed them home with a bar of iron.

He swung round just in time, for Brenchfield was almost on him.

The latter grinned viciously for a moment, then let his clenched hands drop to his sides.

"I can make or break you; and, by heavens! you've made your own choice. I'll break you till you squeal,—then there will be no ten thousand dollars. It will be get out and be-damned to you."

"Go to it," replied Phil easily, "it's your move."

Brenchfield walked to the door.

"Come out and have a look at my horse!" he shouted over his shoulder. "She wants shoeing all round."

Phil followed to where the sleek, black animal was securely tied to a hitching post. Phil had heard of this particular horse of Brenchfield's. She was the fastest piece of horseflesh in the Valley. She was a beauty, but as vicious with her teeth as she was treacherous with her feet. She had the eye of a devil. No one had been found who could ride her save Brenchfield and no one could groom her but her owner. Several had tried; one had been killed outright, one lamed permanently and others gave up before they were compelled to.

"So this is Beelzebub?" asked Phil.

"Yes!"

"Guess you had better bring her back to-morrow when Hanson is here."

"Can't you shoe a horse?"

"Some horses!"

Brenchfield laughed sarcastically.

"Tie her up in the frame then," said Phil, "and I'll do it. Hanson told me she always has to be shod in that way."

Brenchfield laughed again.

"A bright blacksmith you are!" he grunted.

The young smith's face flushed angrily.

"All right!" he retorted, "leave her where she is. There isn't any horse or anything else belonging to you or connected with you,—and including you—that I can't put shoes on."

Phil went over to look more closely at the animal, as the Mayor went to her head and stroked her nose.

"Sure you're not scared? She's a heller!"

Phil walked round her without answering. He was at her rear, closer than he should have been, when Brenchfield suddenly reached and whispered a peculiar, grating, German-like, guttural sound in the mare's ear.

Like lightning her ears went back, her eyes spurted fire, a thrill ran through her body and her two hind feet shot into the air. Brenchfield shouted warningly.

Phil, only half alert, sprang aside. The iron-ringed hoofs flashed past him, one biting along his cheek and ripping it an eighth of an inch deep. Phil staggered to the wall, as the horse continued to plunge and rear in a paroxysm of madness. Her owner tried to pacify her, but he made little headway with the job.

"Good Lord, man! as a man working among horses don't you know better than to hang around the flanks of one of her kind like that? If she had hit you, it would have been all day with you."

Phil pulled himself together.

"Do you think so?" he remarked in a much more casual tone than he felt.

"It looked for a minute like a bad accident."

"It looked to me like attempted murder," retorted Phil.

Brenchfield frowned, but ignored the opening.

"She's a vicious devil. She takes turns like that occasionally when a stranger is near her."

"You mean you give her turns like that occasionally?" put in Phil suggestively.

At that moment, Jim Langford sauntered round the smithy building into the yard.

"Hullo! A love-feast going on! What's the argument, fellows? What have you been doing to your cheek, Phil?"

The Mayor growled.

"This blacksmith pal of yours thought he could shoe Beelzebub. She's got a mad streak on and pretty nearly laid him out. Now he blames me for rousing her, as if she needs any rousing."

"And so you did! I'm not blind or deaf. I saw you and heard you as well."

Brenchfield laughed and tapped his forehead significantly to Langford. But Langford did not respond.

"You mean, Phil, that the Mayor knows what they call 'the horse word'?"

"He seems to possess one of them, at any rate," replied Phil.

"So there are two of them?" laughed Jim.

"There ought to be, if there are any at all;—just as there is hot and cold, day and night, right and wrong, good and bad, positive and negative."

"That sounds reasonable enough, too," answered Jim, who turned suddenly to Brenchfield as the latter was frantically endeavouring to quiet the plunging Beelzebub.

"Now then, for the land's sake, Graham Brenchfield Lavengro, why don't you use that other word? What's the good of creating a devil if you can't keep the curb on him?"

Brenchfield commenced to belabour the horse in his irritation, but the more he struck the more nervous and vicious she seemed to grow.

The sight set Phil's thoughts awandering. A little door in his brain opened and he remembered the queer little wizened-faced horse rustler in for life at Ukalla Jail, whom he had befriended and who in return had given him a word which he said might be useful some day, as it was guaranteed to quiet the wildest horses. At the time, he had grinned at it in his incredulity, but now the thought came, "What if there might be something in it?"

He had not noted that little word, and now he had a difficulty in recalling it. But, as he reviewed the scene at Ukalla Jail in his mind once more, it came to him. He was not quite certain, but he fancied he had it. What if its strange power were true? It was a queer, soft, foreign-sounding word.

There could be no harm in giving it a trial and, if by lucky chance it proved successful, what a triumph he would have over the arrogant Mayor of Vernock, and over Jim Langford as well.

He smiled to himself now at his credulity, as he had done once at his incredulity over the same peculiar word. Then recurred to him that wonderful little saying of Will Shakespeare's:—

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Encouraged by the quotation and angered by Brenchfield's cruelty, he decided to take a chance. He sprang to the mare's head.

"Let the horse alone, man," he cried. "Can't you see you are only making her worse?"

"What the devil do you know about horses? She'll eat you alive, you fool of a tenderfoot."

"I'm willing to take a chance. Stand back and see what I know."

Brenchfield gazed at him in surprise, but, ever ready to be enlightened, he stepped back.

"Jim,—go to the other end of the yard; take him with you,—and watch."

Langford, anxious at all times to be amused; Brenchfield grinning in derision; both went some thirty yards out of hearing, while the horse continued to kick and plunge.

Holding out his hand, Phil drew nearer to the mad animal.

Quietly he murmured the three-syllabled word which he had so dearly earned from his convict friend. The soft and soothing effect of its vowels surprised Phil himself. Time and again he repeated the word, going closer and closer.

Beelzebub stopped her plunging. She cocked forward her ears, straining and listening intently. Phil kept on—as a slow tremor passed over the horse. Slowly the wicked gleam died from her eyes. Phil's hand reached out and touched her nose. He stroked it cautiously—gently. He reached and whispered the word close in her ear. She sighed almost like a woman. In a moment more Phil's left hand was on her sleek neck and running over her back. She whinnied, then her nozzle sought his arm and rubbed along it to his shoulder.

She became as quiet as the proverbial lamb.

Langford and Brenchfield came forward, blank amazement showing in their faces.

"By jiminy!—where the dickens did you learn that? Did I mention Lavengro. Lavengro's a has been, in fact, a never waser alongside that."

He slapped Phil's shoulder. "Good old Phil!"

Surly as an old dog, Brenchfield loosened the reins from the hitching post.

"I'll give you five thousand dollars for that word," he said, turning suddenly to Phil.

"You're mighty free with your money to-day. You must have a lien on somebody's fortune."

"Five thousand dollars," repeated the Mayor.

"Not on your life!" answered Phil. "It was given me strictly on the understanding that it was not to be sold."

"Well then,—I'll give you my 'word' in exchange for yours."

"Your 'word,'—yours? No, Mister Mayor, I haven't any desire to know your 'word.' Keep it,—it fits you. The two words are just about the difference between you and me,—and, God knows, I'm no saint."

Brenchfield laughed in his easy, devil-may-care way. He jumped on to the back of his horse without touching her with his hands.

"Aren't you going to let me shoe her?" asked Phil in assumed disappointment.

For answer, the Mayor touched the horse's side with his spur, trotted round the end of the building and away.

"Phil, old man, where did you learn to subdue horses?"

"I got the word from an old horsey-man whom I befriended once."

"Did you ever use it before?"

"No! I just rethought of it a moment or two before I tried it out."

"Lordy! I shouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. You know, Beelzebub is positively the worst mare in the Valley. Sol Hanson will throw a fit of delight when he hears about this.

"I've heard some queer things about horses, Phil. I once knew an old horse dealer in the East of Scotland. He owned a famous Clydesdale stud stallion. He used to travel with it all over the country. Old Sommerville, they called the man, was a terrible booze artist. He was drunk day and night. But never so drunk that he couldn't look after himself and his stallion. You know, just always half-full of whisky. Well,—there wasn't a paddock that could hold that stallion. It had killed several men and had created tremendous havoc time and again in stables. If it had not been for its qualities as a perfect specimen of a horse, the Government would have ordered its destruction. A special friend of old Sommerville's died, and, on the day of the funeral, Sommerville swore he wouldn't taste liquor for twenty-four hours. He didn't. That night he was taking the stallion from one village to another. He failed to turn up at the village he intended making for, and next morning the stallion was discovered miles away, while later in the day a farm-hand came upon a mass of bloody bones and flesh pounded to mince meat among the earth at the side of a road."

"I quite believe it," said Phil, "because I have heard before somewhere that a horse—no matter how vicious it may be—will never interfere with a man smelling of liquor."

"Well,—I guess the horse had more sense than some of us have," said Jim.

"Sound horse sense, I suppose," laughed Phil.

"But say!—you and Brenchfield don't seem to love each other exactly. What is it, Phil?"

"Oh!—we don't pull together, that's all."

"Anybody can see that. Did you ever meet him before coming here?"

"Yes!" answered Phil shortly.

"Well, old chum, it isn't any of my business, but the Mayor's an oily-tongued rotter and well worth the watching. I'm lying in wait for him myself. He doesn't love me any more than he seems to love you, so if I can help you out any time, let me know.

"He's got the nerve of the devil. He is setting up to little Eileen Pederstone too, the hound. I hope to God a fine woman like she is doesn't have such putrid luck as to marry such a miserable son-of-a-gun. But it is generally that way though, and that coyote nearly always gets what he goes after. He seems to be making money hand over fist. His stock is the largest and best in the Valley. They say he owns half a dozen mines up north and more ranch land in the Okanagan than he can ever use.

"Eileen Pederstone has gone after her dad campaigning, and I heard up at the Court House this morning that Brenchfield is going off in a day or so, invited by the Party to join Royce Pederstone and help along his election with his influence and his glib tongue.

"If Pederstone gets in—as he is sure to do—the next thing we will be hearing will be the Mayor's engagement with Eileen.

"Honest to goodness!—I think I would plug him full of bullet holes on a dark night if that happened."



CHAPTER IX

The Doings of Percival

When Hanson returned that afternoon, his round face was beaming. His big blue eyes stared right into Phil's.

"Say,—by yiminy,—you some kid! You quiet Brenchfield's she-devil!"

"And what about that?"

"What about it! That no good for Sol Hanson. I know all about him. Somebody tell me. By yiminy! you make damn good blacksmith. Some day we put up signboard, 'Hanson and Ralston, General Blacksmiths.' We get all the trade in this damn Valley."

"Who told you about she-devil, Sol?" asked Phil curiously.

"Oh, somebody! He not speak very much but he say plenty when he be good and ready. He watch round corner. Brenchfield make she-devil wild. You speak to her and she get quiet."

"It wasn't Jim Langford who told you, Sol?"

"Langford,—no! Langford's mouth all stitched up. He say nothing at all. You wait!"

Sol put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

In a second, the half-witted, ragamuffin Smiler bobbed his grinning face round the door post. Hanson waved him in and when the youngster saw that only Sol Hanson and Phil were inside he raced round and round Phil in sheer delight, like a puppy-dog round its master. He rubbed his hand up and down Phil's clothes, and he kept pointing to himself and to Phil. Phil could not make out his meaning.

"He says you and him good pals," interpreted Hanson.

"You bet we are, Smiler!" said Phil, patting the boy's matted hair.

"Smiler and me make a deal. We going to live together after this," said Sol. "Smiler he got nobody. Smiler hungry most all the time; dirty, no place to sleep; just a little mongrel-pup. I got lots of grub, nice shack, good beds. Smiler get lots of bath. Smiler and me we going to be pals. What you say, Smiler?"

The boy grinned again and gurgled in happy acquiescence.

"But the kid can't talk?"

"Oh, he talk all right; you bet! He talk with his head, and his eyes, his feet and his hands; talk every old way only you don't savvy his kind of talk."

As soon as work was over, Phil hurried up the hill home. He had had a trying day of it one way and another and he was longing for a refreshing bath and a clean-up.

He popped his head into Langford's room, but Langford either had not come or had been in early and had gone out again.

Whistling softly, he went into his own. His whistle ended abruptly, for his bedroom looked as if it had been struck by a cyclone. Everywhere, in wild confusion, lay shirts, collars and clothes; books, papers and personal belongings. The drawers of his bureau were pulled out and the contents scattered. Someone evidently had been in on a thieves' hunt and had been neither leisurely nor nice about the job.

Phil could not, for the life of him, imagine why anyone would want specially to ransack his of all the choice of rooms at Mrs. Clunie's. He had nothing worth stealing, while many of his landlady's boarders were fairly well endowed in the matter of worldly possessions.

He leaned over the bannister and called excitedly for Mrs. Clunie.

"Guid preserve us a'; what's wrang?" she exclaimed, pulling her dress up in front and hurrying up the stairs.

Phil showed her into his room without a word. The moment she saw the state of it, she threw up her hands in amazement.

"Goodness sakes, Mr. Ralston! It looks as if there had been thievin' bodies here."

"Have any strangers been in the house?"

"Not a soul, Mr. Ralston, except the man you sent wi the note to let him ha'e your spurs that were in the bureau drawer."

"But I didn't send any man, and I didn't write any note!" put in Phil.

"You didna? Oh, the slyness o' him! As sure as my name's Jean Clunie, he was the thief."

"Well!" said Phil ruefully, "he has made a deuce of a jumble of my clothes. But he came to the wrong room if he came for valuables."

"I was busy and I told him to run up and get them. Oh, the cunnin' de'il. Is there nothing missing?"

"Nothing that I know of; certainly nothing valuable, for I don't own any such!"

"Bide a minute till I get that note," exclaimed the perspiring and excited landlady.

She returned in a minute with the paper.

Phil read it over. It was written in a rough hand, in pencil.

Mrs. Clunie,

Please allow bearer into my room to get my spurs for me. He will know where to find them.

PHIL RALSTON.

Phil scratched his head.

"Well, that beats all!"

"And you never wrote it?"

"Not I!"

"But he took your spurs, for I saw them in his hand."

Phil glanced about him.

"Yes!—I guess he has taken my spurs."

"My, but I'm the foolish woman. I never heard tell o' the like o' it before. This place is gettin' as bad as the ceety o' Glesca."

"What was the man like, Mrs. Clunie?"

"Oh, just a wee, short kind o' a rough lookin', dirty kind o' a mannie, wi' a horse."

"What kind of a horse did he have?"

"To tell ye the truth, I didna pay muckle attention to the beastie, but I think it was brown coloured, wi' a white patch on its e'e. Oh, ay! and it was lame, for when he went aff I could see it hobblin' on its fore legs as it galloped doon the road."

"All right!" said Phil. "If you send Betsy up to put the room in order, everything will be O.K."

"I'm right sorry I wasna more parteecular, Mr. Ralston, but I didna think for a minute except that you would be anxious for your spurs. A letter like that would deceive the very Lord himsel'."

"Don't you worry now! I paid only a dollar and a half for the spurs, and I have had that much wear out of them, so they don't owe me anything."

At the same time, Phil himself worried considerably over the matter, for closer inspection betrayed the fact that his little box of private papers and letters had been burst open and examined; also that his leather letter-case—in fact everything likely to contain documents of any kind—had been scrutinised.

As he bathed and dressed himself, he still worried, until it occured to him that this might be some of Brenchfield's doings. He wondered, and then he laughed to himself at the chances the would-be thief had taken to get—nothing.

Once more Phil lost patience with himself, as he thought of his foolishness in getting rid of that confession of Brenchfield's; and yet, in destroying it he had merely acted up to the feeling and good intentions he had had at the time.

He took a turn outside. At the top of the hill, at the corner, little Smiler, with a cleaner face than usual, ran out from the end of a house and stood up in front of Phil.

"Hullo kiddie! What's the good word?"

Smiler just grinned.

"Smiler!" inquired Phil, "you see a little man to-day on a brown horse with a white eye?"

Smiler looked as serious as was possible for his permanently crooked face, then he nodded intelligently. He pointed to his leg and went a few steps limping.

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Phil, "horse got a lame leg!"

Smiler nodded.

"Where did you see him?"

Smiler pointed in the direction of the hill.

"Up near my place?"

The boy nodded again.

"Where did he go?"

Smiler shook his head this time.

"Too bad!" exclaimed Phil.

"If you see him again, anywhere, Smiler, run in and tell me, will you? I'll be at the Kenora for a bit."

Smiler nodded, delighted that he was going to have a chance to be of service to the big man he had taken such a fancy to.

"Here!" Phil handed him twenty-five cents, and the boy ran off in the direction of the Chinese restaurant.

Phil continued down the street, knowing that if the little man on the lame brown horse with the white eye was still in town, it would not be long before Smiler would have him wise to it.

He strolled into the dining-room of the Kenora and ordered his lunch. And, as he waited, in came an old acquaintance in all his high-coloured and picturesque splendour—Percival DeRue Hannington.

Hannington spotted Phil at once and strutted over. He shook hands with vigour and set himself down opposite.

"By gad! old chap,—but this is quite refreshing. I've often thought about you and your good advice not to be in too big a hurry to buy a blooming rawnch."

"Why?" inquired Phil. "I'm glad you took it and it did you good."

"But I didn't take it;—worse bally luck. Don't you know, I thought you might be trying to put me off the chawnce of getting into something good. Everybody warned me when I came out here that I wasn't to take everything I heard for gospel. The beastly trouble seems to be to distinguish between the gospel and the tommyrot."

Phil laughed, and it made him forget his own troubles.

DeRue Hannington ordered dinner also, and, as he refreshed himself he became reminiscent.

"So you did buy a ranch?" started Phil.

"I paid for one," said Hannington, "and, if that isn't jolly-well buying one, you've got to search me, as the Johnnies out here say.

"You see, when you toddled off that day, I was in the saloon asking three fellows if they knew of anyone who had a rawnch for sale.

"One Johnnie said he had a good one I could have cheap, for cash."

"What was the man's name?" asked Phil.

"Barney, Barney something-or-other; oh, yes! cawn't forget it;—Barney Douthem. He did me, the rotter.

"Do you know him, Mister—Mister Phil?"

"I have heard of him. He left here some time ago for the other side of the Line."

"I fawncied so," said Hannington. "I'm looking for that miserable thieving josser.

"Well, I hired a horse and went out with the Barney fellow to see the rawnch, right away. A jolly nice place it was, too—just ten miles out. The Barney chap lived there with a Chinaman who did his housework. It was a twenty-acre place on the side of a hill, with a decent sort of a house and stables. There was a beautiful view of the lake and the Valley, and a fine fishing stream running right through the property. One could fish out of his window, lying in bed. A positive duck of a place!"

"Yes!" remarked Phil, "but a rancher can't live on scenery and by fishing in bed. What kind of fruit trees did the place have?"

"Deuced good trees, Phil! At least, they seemed all-right. Of course, I'm not a bally expert on fruit trees.

"The Douthem chap said he could recommend it and I could have it for five thousand dollars cash. I gave him a cheque right off the reel. He gave me his receipt for the money, and the deal was closed there and then."

DeRue Hannington stopped, as if the memory of it was somewhat painful.

"Not exactly closed, Phil! because it sort of opened up again, two days ago, just three weeks after I was done by Douthem, and he had cashed my cheque and jolly-well beat it, as they say out here.

"It was like this. I was sitting on the veranda, enjoying a smoke and admiring my property and the view, when a collector Johnnie came up the road and asked me where Douthem was. I told him Douthem was gone, and I was now the proprietor.

"'Didn't know they had changed tenants,' said he. 'I've called for the rent.'

"Do you know, Phil, I fawncied the silly owl had gone balmy, but he insisted that he had to collect thirty dollars a month rent.

"Of course, I showed the fellow my receipt for the place, proving I was the owner of it. But he just looked at it and said:—

"'Say!—who are you making a kid of? This might be all right for a bunch of groceries, or electric light, or a ton of coal, but it isn't all right for a rawnch.'

"'Why!—what's the matter with it?' I asked. 'Doesn't it say, Received from Percival DeRue Hannington the sum of five thousand dollars for one ranch of twenty acres, with house and barns, situated ten miles from the city of Vernock and called Douthem's Ranch?'

"'Sure it does,' said the chap. And he was devilish rude about it too."

By this time, Phil had all he could do to keep from shouting with merriment. He did not dare to look at DeRue Hannington, so he kept religiously to his food.

"Well,—he told me the rawnch belonged to some other people; that Douthem only rented it, and that one had to have a deed and register it when one bought property. The blooming upshot was I had to pay the collecting fellow his thirty dollars and get out. So I landed back here to-day.

"I daresay, Phil, a man has to pay for his experience, but you know it looks as if a fellow had to do so much paying that when he does finish up by really owning something, he will have paid such a beastly lot for it that he'll never be able to make it up again."

Phil showed impatience.

"Good heavens, man!—don't you know that land is not exchanged without an Agreement for Sale, or a Deed?"

"How should I know?" answered the innocent. "I never bought land before. If I pay the price for an article, it should be mine, shouldn't it?"

"If the man you pay is honest," replied Phil, "but he isn't always honest, hence Agreements and Deeds.

"Next time you buy a ranch, Mr. Hannington, take my advice and hire a lawyer to see the deal through for you."

"No more bally rawnches for me, Phil. And it is possibly just as well I lost this one, because I have learned that one has to grub and mess among caterpillars and all those dirty little insects and worms they call bugs, which keep getting on the fruit trees, eating up the bally stuff you are trying to grow. I simply cawn't stand the slimy, squashy little reptiles, you know!"

"I am afraid you are destined to meet them in other places besides ranches," remarked Phil.

"I have found them on my dinner table before now!"

"How disgusting!" exclaimed the horrified Englishman.

"What are you going to tackle next? Don't you think you had better get a job for a while, working for wages, until you get acclimatised; and so conserve your money until you have had the necessary experience?"

"Not so long as my old dad is willing to foot the bills! The least he can do is to keep me going here. It is cheaper for him than letting me gad about between London, Paris and the Riviera. Besides, my mother would die of shame if she fawncied her boy Percy was working for wages like a common labouring bounder."

This was a species of maternal niceness Phil had never run up against, consequently he did not feel sympathetic toward it.

"They tell me oil-wells are a jolly good thing to get into. That fellow Rockefeller made a lot out of them, didn't he? You don't know of any likely places around here, Phil?"

"No! I don't think this is much of an oil country, Mr. Hannington. What we hear about oil here is more or less bunk. Better leave it alone!"

"You know,—I did meet a fellow on the train coming across. He had a jolly good thing. He was a water-diviner;—could tell you where the water was for a well just by walking over the land with a twig in his hand and doing a kind of prayer. Seemed to listen for the water, the same way as a robin does on the lawn when after worms."

Phil laughed. "Yes!—I have met a few of that water-divining species, and some of them were pretty good at it, too. They seemed to strike it right fairly often."

"Aw, yes, Phil!" continued DeRue Hannington, wiping his mouth with his napkin and leaning back in his chair, "but this fellow did have a good scheme. He said, you know, if a man could divine water, there was nothing to prevent him from divining oil too. So he was going to the oil-well district in California to test himself out with his idea, then he was coming back to Canada to start up oil-wells all over the bally country."

"He's going to let me in on it too. That's what I call one of my futures. Just a speculation, old chap! I gave him two hundred and fifty dollars on his note. He required it to pay his way to the Oil Wells. Don't you think it might be a real good thing, Phil?"

"It might!—but I don't think I would tell many people about it," said Phil quietly.

"Why?—Oh, yes, I see! I oughtn't to give the chap away before he elaborates his plans. Might spoil them. Silly I didn't think of that!"

"Just so, Mr. Hannington!"

"Meantime, though,—I intend buying a house here and settling down. I do like this Valley. It is so deuced picturesque, you know, and rural. When I'm properly established, I can go in for mining. On a hilly country like this, there ought to be good mining properties; gold, silver, etcetera. Don't you think so, Phil?"

"There might be, if one could only hit them. I've never had enough time or money myself to take the matter up as a hobby."

DeRue Hannington rose slowly from the table.

"Well, Phil, old top!—I've enjoyed our talk. I hope to see you again soon. Come and have a cocktail before I go!"

Phil got up, and they went into the bar together, where a number of Vernock's seasoned bar-loungers were following their usual bent.

DeRue Hannington kept harping on his various money-making schemes, in his high drawling voice, which could be heard all over the saloon. Suddenly his eye fell on one with whom he seemed to be casually acquainted; a foppishly dressed, smooth-tongued rascal who dealt in horses, cards, bunco real-estate, insurance and anything else that brought a commission without much work. He was called Rattlesnake Jim by those who knew him, but Mr. Dalton by those who didn't.

"Excuse me, Phil, but I would like to have a word with Mr. Dalton."

Phil knew at once that Hannington was one of those who didn't know Rattlesnake Jim.

The Englishman called Dalton over.

"Say, old chap,—have a drink!"

Dalton had one.

"What about that horse, Dalton? Have you sold her yet?"

"No siree! I'll sell her when I get my price. I ain't in no hurry."

"Well, you know I offered you two hundred and fifty for her."

"And she's yours for five hundred bucks."

Phil interfered.

"Oh, come off the grass! What do you take my friend for?"

"Do you know the horse we're talking about?" asked Dalton.

"Sure I do!—the white mare. She's a good enough horse, a beauty to look at, but there aren't any millionaires around Vernock going to give you five hundred dollars for her. A hundred and fifty is plenty for a good riding horse these days."

"Say!—whose horse is it, anyway?"

"Yours,—I presume!" said Phil.

"Who's buying the horse?"

"Not me!"

"All right,—keep out!"

Phil smiled.

Dalton twisted up his face and turned to Hannington.

"Well, boss,—is it a go?"

Hannington demurred, then he showed a little decision, which Phil was beginning to think he was entirely devoid of.

"No!—I'm dimmed if I'll pay that much for her. I want the horse because she's white all over and there isn't another like her in colour about the bally town. I like things different, by gad! But I simply won't be put upon. No, dim it, dim it all,—I just won't!"

Dalton walked away without a word, then he whirled on his heel and came slowly back.

"Want a mine—a gold mine?"

Percival DeRue Hannington, ever ready to nibble, showed interest.

"Say, Rattlesnake, forget it! Darn it all, do you think you are talking to a crazy man?"

"See here, Ralston!—why don't you live up to your pet name and keep your trap shut? Butt out!" exclaimed Dalton, curling his upper lip in evident disgust.

"It's an honest-to-goodness gold mine, Mr. Hannington, and I hold all the rights to it."

Phil addressed his friend.

"Don't be foolish now. Everybody in Vernock knows about Dalton's mine. He can't give it away."

"Say, Ralston! if I was big as you and as ugly, I'd knock your face in. Mind your own dirty business and keep out. Mr. Hannington is a man-sized man, with a man-sized bean-pot and doesn't need a wet nurse with him. He knows whether he wants a mine or not," said Dalton sourly.

Phil's eyes flashed anger.

"Now, Phil, please!" put in Hannington. "Really you mustn't quarrel. And you never know, you know;—there really have been old, good-for-nothing mines and things that have turned out wonderful."

Phil shrugged his shoulders.

"Go to it!" he said. "It's your funeral."

"Oh, come now! Don't be playing the bally Dead March over me because of a silly mine.

"Mr. Dalton, what name does this gold mine go by?"

"The Lost Durkin Gold Mine!"

Hannington's face lit up as he caught an inward glimpse of himself as the owner.

"Lost Durkin! Deuced romantic name, you know! Isn't it, Phil?"

Phil failed to respond.

"But why Lost Durkin, Mr. Dalton?"

"It's like this: Durkin and another guy were the discoverers of this ere mine. It panned out,—well!—nobody knowed for sure certain how it panned out; only Durkin and his pal always had lots of nuggets and dust. Durkin's pal went away and Durkin worked it all by hisself. They say he struck it rich in a vein and went batty over it. Anyway, he acted queer for a time. One day his hat was found in the tunnel, and no sign of Durkin from that day to this.

"Durkin's pal, Don Flannigan, without ever comin' back, sold out the mine to Jem Grierson. Grierson sold to me. It ain't been worked to speak of since Durkin tried it out. The gold might be lyin' there just for the pickin' up."

"Oh, say, Rattlesnake!—come off," interposed Phil.

"Why, Hannington,—every hobo that has come to this Valley is open to have a go at it any old time he likes."

"Not on your tin tacks! I hold the mining rights to it, and nobody else. Just let somebody try it on!" put in Dalton.

"But there must be some gold in it, Phil!" remarked Hannington.

"Sure,—about four dollars a day hard working!"

"By jove!—if there's that, there might be more, you know."

"Yes, and there might not!"

"If the gold was absolutely sure, Phil, you know nobody would sell. Would they? A man has got to take a chawnce.

"What do you want for the bally thing, Mr. Dalton?"

"One thousand plunks," remarked Dalton without a tremor.

"Plunks?"

"Yes, plunks,—bucks!"

"Bucks?"

"Yes,—plunks, bucks, greenbacks, In-God-We-Trusts, D-O-double L-A-R-S."

"Two hundred quid!" figured Hannington roughly, who, for the proper realisation of actual values still had the habit of converting his dollars into English coinage.

"Tisn't much for a gold mine, Phil,—is it now?"?

"I could get you a dozen for that."

"Oh, now, Phil!"

Rattlesnake Jim was getting impatient.

"Say, mister—if you're interested, come outside and talk. No use trying to make a deal, with this old man of the sea out playin' buttinsky."

"Don't be a fool now," interposed Phil. "Stay where you are!"

But DeRue Hannington was in the toils again, and the fever was in his blood.

Dalton walked slowly to the door.

Hannington hesitated, looked sheepishly at Phil, then exclaimed over his shoulder:

"Eh, excuse me, old chap,—won't you!" And he hurried alongside the owner of The Lost Durkin Gold Mine.

"Couldn't you come down a bit in your price, old dear? Your figure seems deuced steep where mines seem to be so beastly plentiful," Phil heard Hannington say.

At the door Dalton stopped.

"One thousand for the mine, and just to show you that I'm a real sport and playin' fair, I'll throw the white mare in for luck."

Hannington gasped, then slapped Dalton on the shoulder and grabbed his hand in ecstasy at the overflow of generosity on the part of the mine owner.

"Done,—done! It's a bally go!"

And the two disappeared outside in head-to-head conversation, to the accompaniment of a round of loud laughter from some old timers in the saloon who had overheard part of the talk and who knew that once more a sheep was about to be shorn of its wool.

Phil swung round with his back and elbows on the counter. He surveyed the crowd dimly through the haze of smoke in the bar-room.

Just then Jim Langford came in by the swinging doors.

Phil went over to him directly, led him to a table in the corner, and told him in a few, quick sentences of the thieving visit that had been made to his room at Mrs. Clunie's.

"There's more in this than you think," said Langford, after Phil had concluded. "Haven't you heard the news of the other thieving in town?"

"No,—where was it?"

"A gang must have been working on the O.K. Supply Company's premises last night. Three days ago, Morrison unloaded two carloads of feed and flour in his No. 1 Warehouse. They haven't sold a nickel's worth, and this morning there aren't fifty sacks left."

"Was the place broken into?" asked Phil.

"Must have been, but every bolt and bar is secure, so are all the padlocks. It's a mighty queer thing.

"I had it on the inside that the Pioneer Traders were shy last week, but they gave out no report; and Mayor Brenchfield, whose Warehouse and stables lie between the Pioneer Traders and the O.K. Supply Co. lodged a complaint with Chief Palmer this morning that he had lost forty bags of bran and oats from his place. Of course, his loss isn't a patch on the loss of the other two.

"You know, this darned thing has been going on for several years. Somebody is getting fat on it. The O.K. Supply Company have lost sixty thousand dollars' worth in four or five years. They have put new locks and bolts on, but all to no purpose. The Pioneer Traders must be considerably shy, too.

"The Police don't do a thing, and everybody seems scared to act for fear of being got back at in some way.

"The Indians are being blamed for it; so are some of the wilder element who have cattle ranches and lots of live stock to feed. Easy way to fatten your animals, eh, Phil!

"If we could lay the man by the heels who ransacked your place, we might be able to get a clue to the others."

Phil shook his head. "No,—I don't think so!" he answered.

"Well, old man Morrison of the O.K. Company is a decent head and these continual robberies are bleeding him white. He told me all about it this morning.

"I have made arrangements to quit the Court House for a while and take a job with him as warehouseman, just to see what I can fasten on to."

"Won't they get suspicious if they know you are on the job?"

Langford laughed. "Good Lord, no! I have been in a dozen jobs in this town in as many months. Besides, nobody ever thinks of me as a Sherlock Holmes. I'm just languishing for a little excitement anyway."

"You won't forget then to call me in to lend a hand if there is any scrapping going?" said Phil.

"Would you really come in on it?"

"You bet!"

"All right! This old burg will have something to wake it up one of these days."

Their attention was distracted by the rattle of gravel on the window at which they were sitting. Langford shook his fist at a disappearing figure.

"Who was that?" asked Phil.

"Don't know! Looked like Smiler, the dummy kid. Queer little devil!"

Phil jumped up.

"Maybe he's got some information for me. Wait here! I'll be back directly."

Phil went outside slowly and round the corner of the building to the back-yard. Sure enough, as soon as no one was in sight, Smiler darted up to him. He was all excitement and kept pointing to a clump of trees down a side road.

"Did you find the man with the lame horse?" Phil asked.

Smiler nodded and grinned with pleasure, catching Phil by the coat and leading the way cautiously to where stood the brown mare with the white patch over her eye. She was tethered to a tree, well hidden from view of the road.

Phil examined her legs and saw at a glance that she favoured her left fore foot. A look showed him that some gravel had worked up into an old sore.

Phil pulled the strings of a bag that hung from the saddle. The first things he came across were his own spurs. He took possession of them.

Meanwhile, Smiler was watching with deep interest.

"Where's the man, Smiler?" asked Phil.

The boy grinned and nodded his head, as if to say:—"Come along,—I'll show you."

He led Phil through the back lanes to Chinatown, stopping in front of a cheap, Chinese restaurant. He pointed inside. Phil made to enter.

He encountered, of all people, Brenchfield coming out.

The suddenness of the Mayor's appearance caused him to catch his breath. In Phil's mind it solved the problem at once.

Brenchfield stopped and stared at Phil, then he glared at Smiler who turned tail and ran off as if for his very life.

The Mayor appeared to be in one of his most sullen moods. He turned again and looked angrily at Phil, his eyes travelling from the young smith's face to his boots, then back to his left hand in which he still held his recovered spurs.

Phil jingled them suggestively, and kept on into the restaurant. Brenchfield remained on the sidewalk in front of the door.

Phil knew quite well that he was taking chances, but he risked that.

There was nothing of any moment taking place in the main dining-room. Several diners were on stools at the counter. Others were at tables. A Chinese waiter was serving, while the cook was tossing hot cakes beside the cooking range. The door of the adjoining room was open. Some Chinamen were at a table, deeply interested in a game of chuckaluck. In a room still farther back, some white men were playing poker.

Phil strolled in there. No one paid any heed to him.

His eyes travelled over the players. He did not know any of them. But it did not take him a second to settle in his mind which was the man he was after.

A little, stout, narrow-eyed fellow, who did not seem to have been shaved or washed for months, was seated at the far corner, chewing tobacco viciously. Evidently he had just resumed his game, for Phil heard one of the players exclaim:—

"Aw!—get a move on, Ginger! What'n the deuce do you want to keep us here all day for, waitin' for you and that blasted Mayor to quit chewin' the fat?"

None worried about the new arrival: they were all too engrossed in their game.

In the middle of it, Phil went up close.

"Men,—I hate to butt in, but I want that dirty little fellow over there." He pointed suggestively at his man.

"Yes,—you Ginger!" he shouted, as the little man gaped.

"Aw,—get back on your base!" was all he got for answer, for the man had no idea who had challenged him, and drunks had a habit of interfering at cards, ultimately to find themselves thrown out into the street. He took Phil for one of those and left it to the man nearest to the intruder to settle the account.

With a quick movement Phil threw his body over the table, catching the little fellow smartly by the neck-cloth and shirt in a grip that there was no gainsaying. By the sheer power of his right hand and arm, he pulled the astonished Ginger—before his more astonished partners—right across the table, planting him on his feet in front of him.

The little man gasped for breath and struggled, but finding his struggling merely meant more strangling, he commenced to feel at his hip as if for a gun.

Phil struck him on the side of the head, sending him staggering against the wall. As Ginger recovered, Phil held his spurs under the man's nose and jingled them.

"I guess you know these?"

The fellow's narrow eyes opened wide. He let out a guttural sound and sprang for the door. Phil shot after him. But the little one's speed was accelerated by his fear. Phil's boot was all that reached him and it did its work uncommonly well. A nicely planted kick, just when he reached the door-step, sent Ginger in the air and seated him on the plank sidewalk. He jumped up almost before he touched the boards and tore down the road as if the devil himself were behind him.

Brenchfield, who had been a silent spectator of what had taken place, came into the main room of the restaurant, where a crowd of low whites and curious Chinese had gathered.

"Look here, young man!—you don't want to be doing much of that in this town or you'll find yourself locked up."

Phil shook his spurs in the Mayor's face.

"And you don't want to be doing much of this, or you'll find yourself my next cell neighbour."

The Mayor had no idea how far his opponent was prepared to go, and evidently afraid to risk a scene, he turned his back on Phil with an oath.

"First time I catch that damned, sneaking little rat I saw you with I'll thrash him within an inch of his miserable little life."

"You just try it on,—and, God help you,—that's all," retorted Phil.



CHAPTER X

Jim's Grand Toot

As Phil knocked the dust from his clothes and wiped the perspiration from his face, it suddenly struck him that Jim Langford must have been waiting fully half an hour for him at the Kenora.

He hurried through Chinatown and down toward the hotel. When he got there, he found Jim in lazy conversation with some passing acquaintance, whom he immediately left.

"Did you finish what you were after, Phil?"

"You bet!"

"Tell me about it. I wish to size the thing up."

With the exception of his encounter with the Mayor, Phil recounted all that had happened. He preferred keeping to himself that little bout he had had with Brenchfield, for he knew Jim already had suspicions that he and Brenchfield had some old secret antagonism toward each other. Some day, he thought, he might feel constrained to unburden himself on the point to Jim, but the time for that did not appear to be ripe.

"Darned funny!" remarked Langford, when Phil concluded. "I can't recollect the man from your description and there doesn't seem to be any connection between him and the flour and feed steal. But—what the devil could that fellow be after, anyway?"

Suddenly, as was his habit, he dismissed the subject and broke in on another.

"Say, Phil,—know who's in the card-room?"

"No!"

"An old pal of yours!" He commenced to sing a line of an old Scot's song:—"Rob Roy McGregor O."

"Yes!"

"How's your liver?"

"Don't know I have one—so it must be all right!"

"What do you think about paying off old scores?" Mischief was lurking in his eyes.

"Oh, let's forget that, Jim! It is too cold-blooded for me."

"Cold-blooded nothing! The dirty skunk didn't look at it that way when you were as weak as Meeting-house tea and hardly able to stand on your two pins."

"That's no lie, either!"

"And he'd do it again if he thought it would work."

Phil looked at Jim.

"I guess you are right,—and I feel mad enough to scrap with anybody."

"Right! Let us work it as near as we can the way he worked it on you."

They went over to the table near the window and rehearsed quietly their method of operation, and it was not long before a noise in the back room signalled the break-up of the card game. Half a dozen rough-looking fellows from Redmans Creek followed one another out to the saloon, headed, as usual, by McGregor, straddling his legs and swaggering, looking round with a cynical twist on his handsome face. They went over to the bar.

McGregor pushed himself in at the far end, brushing an innocent individual out of his way in the operation. The man who followed McGregor wedged himself in next. McGregor slid along and two more harmless men at the bar gave way. It was an old trick and they knew how to perform it. Still the McGregor gang pushed in, one after another, until the entire counter was taken up by the six, who stood there, legs and elbows sprawled, laughing and jeering at the men they had displaced and at their lack of courage in not endeavouring to hold their own.

They stood in this fashion for possibly five minutes, blocking the counter and not allowing anyone else to get near it.

Suddenly Phil jumped up from his seat and walked over to the bar.

"Say, fellows! Come on all and have a drink on me!" he shouted.

The six at the bar swung round to look at the speaker.

"Come on,—ease up, you ginks!—unless you've hired the Kenora saloon for the night."

No one moved, so Phil caught the man nearest to him by the belt and yanked him out deftly. Langford, who was immediately behind Phil, caught the next one and repeated the performance.

There was a scramble and some of the more aggressive bystanders joined in to Phil's and Jim's assistance. Then the more timid followed, with the ultimate result that five of McGregor's gang were dislodged, as a dozen men crowded alongside and around their champion. McGregor still held his place defiantly, elbows and legs asprawl as before. Phil was close up to him, with Jim at Phil's left hand.

"Guess you think you're some kid!" McGregor remarked, spitting a wad of chewing tobacco on to the floor.

"Quit your scrapping," returned Phil in assumed irritation. "Have a drink!—it's on me. It isn't often I stand treat. Name your poison!"

"Well,—if that's all you're up to, guess I might as well," he answered, in reluctant conciliation.

"Come on, fellows! This hell-for-leather blacksmith wants to blow in his week's wages on drinks. We ain't goin' to stop him."

The bar-tenders served as fast as they could. Phil paid the score, then turned to have a fresh look at McGregor. The latter was watching him closely out of the corner of his eyes. He took up his glass.

"Guess you think you're puttin' one over," he snarled. "Well,—you've got another guess comin'."

He put his tumbler up against Phil's jacket, tilted it deliberately, sending the contents trickling all the way down Phil's clothes right to his boot. He looked into Ralston's eyes with a sneer on his face and slowly set his tumbler on the counter, watching every movement in the room through narrowed eyes.

Phil's temper flared out and he swung on McGregor with tremendous quickness.

To his surprise, quick as he was, his fist fell on McGregor's wrist.

In a second, they were in the centre of the room, tables and chairs were whirled into corners as by magic, and the two were in a ring formed by a wall of swaying bodies and eager faces, for more than a few of them had witnessed the previous encounter between the pair and had been wondering just when the return match would take place.

Phil waited with bated breath for the bull-like rush which he expected, while Langford's voice could be heard high over the hubbub, shouting in the Doric to which he had risen in his excitement:—

"Mair room! Gi'e them mair room. Widen oot, can ye no!—widen oot!"

But instead of the rush for grips that Phil anticipated, he found himself faced by a man, strong as a lion, with arms out in the true pugilistic attitude. He guessed it for a ruse and a bit of play-acting, and sprang in. He struck three times for separate parts of the cowpuncher's body, but each time he struck he encountered a guarding arm or fist. This more than surprised him, for it was well known that McGregor's strong and only point was his brute force.

In order to give himself time to think the matter out, Phil sprang away again.

McGregor's face was sphinx-like in its inscrutable cynicism.

They circled, facing each other like sparring gamecocks of a giant variety.

Phil, determined on having another try, jumped in on his huge opponent.

He struck, once—twice. He was about to strike again, when he staggered back as if he had been hit by a sledge hammer fair on the chin. The saloon swung head over heels in a whirligig movement. Phil's arms became heavy as lead and dropped to his side. His legs sagged under him.

In a state of drugging collapse, he felt himself seized and crushed as into a pulp; a not unpleasant sensation of swinging, a hurtling through the air and splintering,—then, well,—that was all.

When he came to, he was being carried up the stairs to his bedroom, to the accompaniment of Mrs. Clunie's repeated regrets, in broad Scotch, that it was a pity "weel bred young chiels couldna agree to disagree in a decent manner, wise-like and circumspectly, withoot fechtin' like a wheen drucken colliers."

This did not prevent that good lady from washing and binding Phil's numerous but not very deadly cuts and bruises.

It was two days before he was able to be out of bed, and during these two days he heard a number of stories, through Mrs. Clunie, of what had happened at the Kenora Hotel after his hurried exit through the window. These stories he refused to believe, for his faith in Jim Langford's ability was too strong to be easily shaken. But one thing he had to give credence to was, that Jim had not shown face at Mrs. Clunie's since the night of the trouble.

Mrs. Clunie complained that half a dozen times she had chased "that hauf-witted, saft sannie o' a daftie, ca'ed Laugher, or Smiler or something," from the back door, and she was sure he was "efter nae guid."

On the morning of the third day, Phil, stiff and a little wobbly, set out for the smithy, where big Sol Hanson welcomed him back with an indulgent grin.

Hanson had learned all about the affray, as everyone else in town seemed to have done.

"But has anyone seen Langford?" asked Phil in some concern, as they discussed the matter.

"Oh, Langford go on one big booze," laughed Sol. "He turn up maybe in about one month, all shot to hell, then he sober up again for long time."

"But doesn't anyone know where he is?"

"Sure, sometimes!—maybe at Kelowna, then Kamloops. Somebody see him at Armstrong, then no see him for another while. Best thing you leave Jim Langford till he gets good and ready to come back. Only make trouble any other way. Everybody leave big Jim when he goes on a big toot."

"Well," said Phil with some decision, "I'm going after him anyway, and I'm going to stay right with him till he's O.K."

"All right, son—please yourself! We are not so busy now, but I tell you it no damn good. I know Jim Langford, five, maybe six year,—see!"

Phil set out to make inquiries.

At the Kenora he heard of someone who had seen Jim the day before at the town of Salmon Arm, between thirty and forty miles away. He took the stage there, only to find that Langford had left presumably for Vernock. Back again he came, and it was late at night when he got to town. On dropping off the stage, he ran into the faithful Smiler.

"Hullo, kid! You see Jim Langford?" he asked.

Smiler nodded.

"Know where he is?"

He nodded again excitedly, hitching up his trousers which were held round his middle by a piece of cord.

"Might have known it," thought Phil, "and saved myself a lot of running about.

"Lead on, MacDuff!" he cried. "Show me Jim Langford and I'll give you two-bits."

Smiler led the way in the darkness, down a side street into the inevitable and dimly lit Chinatown. Smiler stopped up in front of the dirty, dingy entrance of a little hall occasionally used for Chinese theatricals. He pointed inside with a grin, refused Phil's proffered twenty-five cents, backing up and finally racing away.

A special performance in Chinese was being given by a troupe of actors from Vancouver and all Chinatown who could were there.

Phil paid his admission to a huge, square-jawed Chinaman at the pay-box, and pushed through the swing doors, inside.

The theatre was crowded with Orientals, who, for the most part, were dirty, vile-smelling and expectorating.

About half-way down the centre of the aisle, he took a vacant seat on the end of one of the rough, wooden, backless benches which were all that were provided for the comfort of the audience. The place was very badly lighted, although the stage stood out in well-illuminated contrast.

Phil's first anxiety was to locate Jim. He scanned the packed benches, but all he could see was stolid, gaunt-jawed, slit-eyed Chinamen. There did not seem to be another white man in the place.

Someone nudged him on the arm. He turned. A sleek Chinaman, whom Phil had often seen on the streets—the janitor, Phil remembered, for The Pioneer Traders,—grinned at him.

"You tly catch Missee Langfod?" he whispered.

"Yes!" nodded Phil.

"He down there, flont seat."

Phil looked in the direction indicated and, sure enough, there was Jim—alone, in the middle of the foremost and only otherwise unoccupied bench in the hall—all absorbed in the scene that was being enacted on the platform.

Contented in the knowledge that he now had his friend under surveillance, Phil directed his interest to the stage, for he had never before been present at so strange a performance.

The opera, for such it appeared to be, was already under way. The lady, the Chinese equivalent of a prima-donna—dressed in silks emblazoned with gold spangles, tinsel and glass jewels, with a strange head-dress, three feet high, consisting of feathers and pom-pons—was holding forth in what was intended to be song. It occurred to Phil that he had thrown old boots at tom-cats in Mrs. Clunie's back-yard for giving expression to what was sweet melody in comparison.

The actress's face was painted and powdered to a mere mask. Her finger nails were two inches longer than her four-inch-long feet. She rattled those fingers nails in a manner that made Phil's flesh creep, although this action seemed highly pleasing to the audience in general. The lady, Phil learned from the Chinaman at his side, was a famous beauty.

The scenery required no description, being merely a number of plain, movable partitions, draught-screens and chairs. There was no drop-curtain, and the scene shifters worked in full view of the audience, removing furniture and knocking down partitions with hammers during the vocal rendering of some of the thrilling passages of the opera. On another platform, behind the stage, the orchestra was making strenuous, and at times, very effective attempts to drown the squeals of the Leading Lady, who did not seem to mind it a bit. The conductor, in his shirt sleeves, was laying on, alternately, to a Chinese drum and what looked like two empty cocoanut shells, whacking out a species of rag-time all on his own, while the two other members of the band were performing on high-pitched Chinese fiddles, determined evidently on keeping up the racket at all costs.