A Damaged Reputation

"What did you come out for?"

Brooke was accustomed to Western brusquerie, and there was nothing in his companion's manner which made the question offensive.

"I fancy my motive was not an unusual one. To pick up a few dollars."

"Got them yet?"

"I can't say I have."

The stranger appeared reflective. "There are not many folks who would have admitted that," he said. "When a man has been four years in this country he ought to have put a few dollars together. What have you been at?"

"Ranching most of the time. Road-making, saw-milling, and a few other occupations of the same kind afterwards."

"What was wrong with the ranch?"

Persistent questioning is not unusual in that country, for what is considered delicacy depends largely upon locality, and Brooke laughed.

"Almost everything," he said. "It had a good many disadvantages besides its rockiness, sterility, and an unusually abundant growth of two-hundred-feet trees. Still, it was the man who sold it me I found most fault with. He was a land agent."

"One of the little men?"

"No. I believe he is considered rather a big one – in fact about the biggest in that particular line."

The little sardonic gleam showed a trifle more plainly in the stranger's eyes. "He told you the land was nicely cleared ready, and would grow anything?"

"No," said Brooke. "He, however, led me to believe that it could be cleared with very little difficulty, and that the lumber was worth a good deal. I daresay it is, if there was any means whatever of getting it to a mill, which there isn't. He certainly told me there was no reason it shouldn't grow as good fruit as any that comes from Oregon, while I found the greatest difficulty in getting a little green oat fodder out of it."

"You went back, and tried to cry off your bargain?"

Brooke glanced at his companion, and fancied that he was watching him closely. "I really don't know any reason why I should worry you with my affairs. My case isn't at all an unusual one."

"I don't know of any why you shouldn't. Go right on."

"Then I never got hold of the man himself. It was one of his agents I made the deal with, and there was nothing to be obtained from him. In fact, I could see no probability of getting any redress at all. It appears to be considered commendable to take the newly-arrived Britisher in."

The other man smiled drily. "Well," he said, "some of them 'most seem to expect it. Ever think of trying the law against the principal?"

"The law," said Brooke, "is apt to prove a very uncertain remedy, and I spent my last few dollars convincing myself that the ranch was worthless. Now, one confidence ought to warrant another. What has brought you into the bush? You do not belong to it."

The stranger laughed. "There's not much bush in this country, from Kootenay to Caribou, I haven't wandered through. I used to live in it – quite a long while ago. I came up to look at a mine. I buy one up occasionally."

"Isn't that a little risky?"

"Well," said the other, with a little smile, "it depends. There are goods, like eggs and oranges, you don't want to keep."

"And a good market in England for whatever the Colonials have no particular use for?"

The stranger laughed good-humoredly. "Did you ever strike any real good salt pork in Canada?"

"No," said Brooke, decisively, "I certainly never did."

"Then where does the best bacon you get in England come from? Same with cheese – and other things."

"Including mines?"

"Well, when any of them look like paying it's generally your folk who get them. Know anything about the Dayspring?"

"Not a great deal," Brooke said, guardedly. "I have been in the workings, and it is for sale."

"Ore worth anything at the smelter?"

Now Brooke was perfectly certain that such a man as his companion appeared to be would attach no great importance to any information obtained by chance from a stranger.

"There is certainly a little good ore in it," he said, drily.

"That is about all you mean to tell me?"

"It is about all I know definitely."

The stranger smiled curiously. "Well," he said, "I'm not going to worry you, and I guess I know a little more."

Brooke changed the topic, and listened with growing interest, and a little astonishment, to his companion as they drove on. The man seemed acquainted with everything he could mention, including the sentiments of the insular English and the economics as well as the history of their country. He was even more astonished when, as they alighted before the little log hotel at the pine-shrouded settlement, the host greeted the stranger.

"You'll be Mr. Devine who wrote me about the room and a saddle horse?" he said.

"Yes," said the other man, who glanced at Brooke with a little whimsical smile, "you have addressed me quite correctly."

Brooke said nothing, for he realized then something of the nature of the task he and Saxton had undertaken, while it was painfully evident that he had done very little to further his cause at the first encounter. He also found the little gleam in Devine's eyes almost exasperating, and turned to the hotel-keeper to conceal the fact.

"Has the freighter come through?" he said.

"No," said the man. "Bob, who has just come in, said he'd a big load and we needn't expect him until to-morrow."

Devine had turned away now, and Brooke touched the hotel-keeper's arm. "I don't wish that man to know I'm from the Elktail," he said.

"Well," said the hotel-keeper, "you know Saxton's business best, but if I had any share in it and struck a man of that kind looking round for mines I'd do what was in me to shove the Dayspring off on to him."

IX.

DEVINE MAKES A SUGGESTION

There was only one hotel, which scarcely deserved the title, in the settlement, and when Brooke returned to it an hour after the six o'clock supper, he found Devine sitting on the verandah. He had never met the man until that afternoon, and had only received one very terse response to the somewhat acrimonious correspondence he had insisted on his agent forwarding him respecting the ranch. He had no doubt that the affair had long ago passed out of Devine's memory, though he was still, on his part, as determined as ever on obtaining restitution. He had, however, no expectation of doing it by persuasion, though the man was evidently a very different individual from the one his fancy had depicted, and, that being so, recrimination appeared useless, as well as undignified. He was, therefore, while he would have done nothing to avoid him, by no means anxious to spend the remainder of the evening in Devine's company. The latter was, however, already on the verandah, and looked up when he entered it.

"I had almost a fancy you meant to keep out of my way," he said.

Brooke sat down, and there was a trace of dryness in his smile.

"If I had felt inclined to do so, you would scarcely expect me to admit it? I don't mean because that would not have been complimentary to you," he said.