V.—IN SEARCH OF GAME.
The warm morning gave promise of a blistering hot day, as Lord Stranleigh strolled, in his usual leisurely fashion, up Fifth Avenue. High as the thermometer already stood, the young man gave no evidence that he was in the least incommoded by the temperature. In a welter of heated, hurrying people, he produced the effect of an iceberg that had somehow drifted down into the tropics. The New York tailor entrusted with the duty of clothing him quite outdistanced his London rival, who had given Lord Stranleigh the reputation of being the best-dressed man in England. Now his lordship was dangerously near the point where he might be called the best-dressed man in New York, an achievement worthy of a Prince’s ambition.
His lordship, with nothing to do, and no companionship to hope for, since everyone was at work, strolled into the splendour of the University Club and sought the comparative coolness of the smoking room, where, seating himself in that seductive invitation to laziness, a leather-covered arm chair, he began to glance over the illustrated English weeklies. He had the huge room to himself. These were business hours, and a feeling of loneliness crept over him, perhaps germinated by his sight of the illustrated papers, and accentuated by an attempted perusal of them. They were a little too stolid for a hot day, so Stranleigh turned to the lighter entertainment of the American humorous press.
Presently there entered this hall of silence the stout figure of Mr. John L. Banks, senior attorney for the Ice Trust, a man well known to Stranleigh, who had often sought his advice, with profit to both of them. The lawyer approached the lounger.
“Hello, Banks, I was just thinking of you, reflecting how delightful it must be in this weather to be connected, even remotely, with the ice supply of New York.”
Mr. Banks’s panama hat was in one hand, while the other drew a handkerchief across his perspiring brow.
“Well, Stranleigh, you’re looking very cool and collected. Enacting the part of the idle rich, I suppose?”
“No, I’m a specimen of labour unrest.”
“Perhaps I can appease that. I’m open to a deal at fair compensation for you. If you will simply parade the streets in that leisurely fashion we all admire, bearing a placard ‘Pure Ice Company,’ I’ll guarantee you a living wage and an eight hours’ day.”
“Should I be required to carry about crystal blocks of the product?”
“No; you’re frigid enough as it is. Besides, ice at the present moment is too scarce to be expended on even so important a matter as advertisement.”
Banks wheeled forward an arm chair, and sat down opposite his lordship. A useful feature of a panama hat is its flexibility. You may roll one brim to fit the hand, and use the other as a fan, and this Banks did with the perfection of practice.
“What’s the cause of the unrest, Stranleigh?”
“Thinking. That’s the cause of unrest all the world over. Whenever people begin to think, there is trouble.”
“I’ve never noticed any undue thoughtfulness in you, Stranleigh.”
“That’s just it. Thinking doesn’t agree with me, and as you hint, I rarely indulge in it, but this is a land that somehow stimulates thought, and thought compels action. Action is all very well in moderation, but in these United States of yours it is developed into a fever, or frenzy rather, curable only by a breakdown or death.”
“Do you think it’s as bad as all that?”
“Yes, I do. You call it enterprise; I call it greed. I’ve never yet met an American who knew when he’d had enough.”
“Did you ever meet an Englishman who knew that?”
“Thousands of them.”
Banks laughed.
“I imagine,” he said, “it’s all a matter of nomenclature. You think us fast over here, and doubtless you are wrong; we think you slow over there, and doubtless we are wrong. I don’t think we’re greedy. No man is so lavish in his expenditure as an American, and no man more generous. A greedy man does not spend money. Our motive power is interest in the game.”
“Yes; everyone has told me that, but I regard the phrase as an excuse, not as a reason.”
“Look here, Stranleigh, who’s been looting you? What deal have you lost? I warned you against mixing philanthropy with business, you remember.”
Stranleigh threw back his head and laughed.
“There you have it. According to you a man cannot form an opinion that is uninfluenced by his pocket. As a matter of fact, I have won all along the line. I tried the game, as you call it, hoping to find it interesting, but it doesn’t seem to me worth while. I pocket the stakes, and I am going home, in no way elated at my success, any more than I should have been discouraged had I failed.”
Leaning forward, Mr. Banks spoke as earnestly as the weather permitted.
“What you need, Stranleigh, is a doctor’s advice, not a lawyer’s. You have been just a little too long in New York, and although New Yorkers don’t believe it, there are other parts of the country worthy of consideration. Your talk, instead of being an indictment of life as you find it, has been merely an exposition of your own ignorance, a sample of that British insularity which we all deplore. I hope you don’t mind my stating the case as I see it?”
“Not at all,” said Stranleigh. “I am delighted to hear your point of view. Go on.”
“Very well; here am I plugging away during this hot weather in this hot city. Greed, says you.”
“I say nothing of the kind,” replied his lordship calmly. “I am merely lost in admiration of a hard-working man, enduring the rigours of toil in the most luxurious club of which I have ever been an honorary member. Let me soften the asperities of labour by ordering something with ice in it.”
The good-natured attorney accepted the invitation, and then went on—
“We have a saying regarding any futile proposition to the effect that it cuts no ice. This is the position of the Trust in which I am interested. In this hot weather we cut no ice, but we sell it. Winter is a peaceable season with us, and the harder the winter, the better we are pleased, but summer is a time of trouble. It is a period of complaints and law-suits, and our newspaper reading is mostly articles on the greed and general villainy of the Trust. So my position is literally that of what-you-may-call-him on the burning deck, whence almost all but he have fled to the lakes, to the mountains, to the sea shore. Now, I don’t intend to do this always. I have set a limit of accumulated cash, and when I reach it I quit. It would be high falutin’ if I said duty held me here, so I will not say it.”
“A lawyer can always out-talk a layman,” said Stranleigh, wearily, “and I suppose all this impinges on my ignorance.”
“Certainly,” said Banks. “It’s a large subject, you know. But I’ll leave theory, and come down to practice. As I said before, you’ve had too much of New York. You are known to have a little money laid by against a rainy day, so everybody wants you to invest in something, and you’ve got tired of it. Have you ever had a taste of ranch life out West?”
“I’ve never been further West than Chicago.”
“Good. When you were speaking of setting a limit to financial ambition, I remembered my old friend, Stanley Armstrong, the best companion on a shooting or fishing expedition I ever encountered. It is not to be wondered at that he is an expert in sport, for often he has had to depend on rod and gun for sustenance. He was a mining engineer, and very few know the mining west as well as he does. He might have been a millionaire or a pauper, but he chose a middle course, and set his limit at a hundred thousand pounds. When land was cheap he bought a large ranch, partly plain and partly foothills, with the eternal snow mountains beyond. Now, if you take with you an assortment of guns and fishing rods, and spend a month with Stanley Armstrong, your pessimism will evaporate.”
“A good idea,” said Stranleigh. “If you give me a letter of introduction to Mr. Armstrong, I’ll telegraph at once to be sure of accommodation.”
“Telegraph?” cried the lawyer. “He’d never get your message. I don’t suppose there’s a telegraph office within fifty miles. You don’t need a letter of introduction, but I’ll write you one, and give your name merely as Stranleigh. You won’t have any use for a title out there; in fact, it is a necessary part of my prescription that you should get away from yours, with the consequences it entails. Not that you’re likely to come across would-be investors, or any one with designs on your wealth. As for accommodation, take a tent with you, and be independent. When I return to my office, I’ll dictate full instructions for reaching the ranch.”
“Is it so difficult of access as all that?”
“You might find it so. When you reach the nearest railway station, which is a couple of days’ journey from the ranch, you can acquire a horse for yourself, and two or three men with pack mules for your belongings. They’ll guide you to Armstrong’s place.”
Stranleigh found no difficulty in getting a cavalcade together at Bleachers’ station, an amazingly long distance west of New York. A man finds little trouble in obtaining what he wants, if he never cavils at the price asked, and is willing to pay in advance. The party passed through a wild country, though for a time the road was reasonably good. It degenerated presently into a cart-track, however, and finally became a mere trail through the wilderness. As night fell, the tent was put up by the side of a brawling stream, through which they had forded.
Next morning the procession started early, but it was noon before it came to the clearing which Stranleigh rightly surmised was the outskirts of the ranch. The guide, who had been riding in front, reined in, and allowed Stranleigh to come alongside.
“That,” he said, pointing down the valley, “is Armstrong’s ranch.”
Before Stranleigh could reply, if he had intended doing so, a shot rang out from the forest, and he felt the sharp sting of a bullet in his left shoulder. The guide flung himself from the saddle with the speed of lightning, and stood with both hands upraised, his horse between himself and the unseen assailant.
“Throw up your hands!” he shouted to Stranleigh.
“Impossible!” was the quiet answer, “my left is helpless.”
“Then hold up your right.”
Stranleigh did so.
“Slide off them packs,” roared the guide to his followers, whereupon ropes were untied on the instant, and the packs slid to the ground, while the mules shook themselves, overjoyed at this sudden freedom.
“Turn back!” cried the guide. “Keep your hand up, and they won’t shoot. They want the goods.”
“Then you mean to desert me?” asked Stranleigh.
“Desert nothing!” rejoined the guide, gruffly.
“We can’t stand up against these fellows, whoever they are. We’re no posse. To fight them is the sheriff’s business. I engaged to bring you and your dunnage to Armstrong’s ranch. I’ve delivered the goods, and now it’s me for the railroad.”
“I’m going to that house,” said Stranleigh.
“The more fool you,” replied the guide, “but I guess you’ll get there safe enough, if you don’t try to save the plunder.”
The unladen mules, now bearing the men on their backs, had disappeared. The guide washed his hands of the whole affair, despite the fact that his hands were upraised. He whistled to his horse, and marched up the trail for a hundred yards or so, still without lowering his arms, then sprang into the saddle, fading out of sight in the direction his men had taken. Stranleigh sat on his horse, apparently the sole inhabitant of a lonely world.
“That comes of paying in advance,” he muttered, looking round at his abandoned luggage. Then it struck him as ridiculous that he was enacting the part of an equestrian statue, with his arm raised aloft. Still, he remembered enough of the pernicious literature that had lent enchantment to his early days, to know that in certain circumstances the holding up of hands was a safeguard not to be neglected, so he lowered his right hand, and took in it the forefinger of his left, and thus raised both arms over his head, turning round in the saddle to face the direction from whence the shots had come. Then he released the forefinger, and allowed the left arm to drop as if it had been a semaphore. He winced under the pain that this pantomime cost him, then in a loud voice he called out:
“If there is anyone within hearing, I beg to inform him that I am wounded slightly; that I carry no firearms; that my escort has vanished, and that I’m going to the house down yonder to have my injury looked after. Now’s the opportunity for a parley, if he wants it.”
He waited for some moments, but there was no response, then he gathered up the reins, and quite unmolested proceeded down the declivity until he came to the homestead.
The place appeared to be deserted, and for the first time it crossed Stranleigh’s mind that perhaps the New York lawyer had sent him on this expedition as a sort of practical joke. He couldn’t discover where the humour of it came in, but perhaps that might be the density with which his countrymen were universally credited. Nevertheless, he determined to follow the adventure to an end, and slipped from his horse, making an ineffectual attempt to fasten the bridle rein to a rail of the fence that surrounded the habitation. The horse began placidly to crop the grass, so he let it go at that, and advancing to the front door, knocked.
Presently the door was opened by an elderly woman of benign appearance, who nevertheless regarded him with some suspicion. She stood holding the door, without speaking, seemingly waiting for her unexpected visitor to proclaim his mission.
“Is this the house of Stanley Armstrong?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he at home? I have a letter of introduction to him.”
“No; he is not at home.”
“Do you expect him soon?”
“He is in Chicago,” answered the woman.
“In Chicago?” echoed Stranleigh. “We must have passed one another on the road. I was in Chicago myself, but it seems months ago; in fact, I can hardly believe such a place exists.” The young man smiled a little grimly, but there was no relaxation of the serious expression with which the woman had greeted him.
“What was your business with my husband?”
“No business at all; rather the reverse. Pleasure, it might be called. I expected to do a little shooting and fishing. A friend in New York kindly gave me a letter of introduction to Mr. Armstrong, who, he said, would possibly accompany me.”
“Won’t you come inside?” was her reluctant invitation. “I don’t think you told me your name.”
“My name is Stranleigh, madam. I hope you will excuse my persistence, but the truth is I have been slightly hurt, and if, as I surmise, it is inconvenient to accept me as a lodger, I should be deeply indebted for permission to remain here while I put a bandage on the wound. I must return at once to Bleachers, where I suppose I can find a physician more or less competent.”
“Hurt?” cried the woman in amazement, “and I’ve been keeping you standing there at the door. Why didn’t you tell me at once?”
“Oh, I think it’s no great matter, and the pain is not as keen as I might have expected. Still, I like to be on the safe side, and must return after I have rested for a few minutes.”
“I’m very sorry to hear of your accident,” said Mrs. Armstrong, with concern. “Sit down in that rocking-chair until I call my daughter.”
The unexpected beauty of the young woman who entered brought an expression of mild surprise to Stranleigh’s face. In spite of her homely costume, a less appreciative person than his lordship must have been struck by Miss Armstrong’s charm, and her air of intelligent refinement.
“This is Mr. Stranleigh, who has met with an accident,” said Mrs. Armstrong to her daughter.
“Merely a trifle,” Stranleigh hastened to say, “but I find I cannot raise my left arm.”
“Is it broken?” asked the girl, with some anxiety.
“I don’t think so; I fancy the trouble is in the shoulder. A rifle bullet has passed through it.”
“A rifle bullet?” echoed the girl, in a voice of alarm. “How did that happen? But—never mind telling me now. The main thing is to attend to the wound. Let me help you off with your coat.”
Stranleigh stood up.
“No exertion, please,” commanded the girl. “Bring some warm water and a sponge,” she continued, turning to her mother.
She removed Stranleigh’s coat with a dexterity that aroused his admiration. The elder woman returned with dressings and sponge, which she placed on a chair. Stranleigh’s white shirt was stained with blood, and to this Miss Armstrong applied the warm water.
“I must sacrifice your linen,” she said calmly. “Please sit down again.”
In a few moments his shoulder was bare; not the shoulder of an athlete, but nevertheless of a young man in perfect health. The girl’s soft fingers pressed it gently.
“I shall have to hurt you a little,” she said.
Stranleigh smiled.
“It is all for my good, as they say to little boys before whipping them.”
The girl smiled back at him.
“Yes; but I cannot add the complementary fiction that it hurts me more than it does you. There! Did you feel that?”
“Not more than usual.”
“There are no bones broken, which is a good thing. After all, it is a simple case, Mr. Stranleigh. You must remain quiet for a few days, and allow me to put this arm in a sling. I ought to send you off to bed, but if you promise not to exert yourself, you may sit out on the verandah where it is cool, and where the view may interest you.”
“You are very kind, Miss Armstrong, but I cannot stay. I must return to Bleachers.”
“I shall not allow you to go back,” she said with decision.
Stranleigh laughed.
“In a long and comparatively useless life I have never contradicted a lady, but on this occasion I must insist on having my own way.”
“I quite understand your reason, Mr. Stranleigh, though it is very uncomplimentary to me. It is simply an instance of man’s distrust of a woman when it comes to serious work. Like most men, you would be content to accept me as a nurse, but not as a physician. There are two doctors in Bleachers, and you are anxious to get under the care of one of them. No—please don’t trouble to deny it. You are not to blame. You are merely a victim of the universal conceit of man.”
“Ah, it is you who are not complimentary now! You must think me a very commonplace individual.”
She had thrown the coat over his shoulders, after having washed and dressed the wound. The bullet had been considerate enough to pass right through, making all probing unnecessary. With a safety-pin she attached his shirt sleeve to his shirt front.
“That will do,” she said, “until I prepare a regular sling. And now come out to the verandah. No; don’t carry the chair. There are several on the platform. Don’t try to be polite, and remember I have already ordered you to avoid exertion.”
He followed her to the broad piazza, and sat down, drawing a deep breath of admiration. Immediately in front ran a broad, clear stream of water; swift, deep, transparent.
“An ideal trout stream,” he said to himself.
A wide vista of rolling green fields stretched away to a range of foothills, overtopped in the far distance by snow mountains.
“By Jove!” he cried. “This is splendid. I have seen nothing like it out of Switzerland.”
“Talking of Switzerland,” said Miss Armstrong, seating herself opposite him, “have you ever been at Thun?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You stopped at the Thunerhof, I suppose?”
“I don’t remember what it was called, but it was the largest hotel in the place, I believe.”
“That would be the Thunerhof,” she said. “I went to a much more modest inn, the Falken, and the stream that runs in front of it reminded me of this, and made me quite lonesome for the ranch. Of course, you had the river opposite you at the Thunerhof, but there the river is half a dozen times as wide as the branch that runs past the Falken. I used to sit out on the terrace watching that stream, murmuring to its accompaniment ‘Home, sweet Home.’”
“You are by way of being a traveller, then?”
“Not a traveller, Mr. Stranleigh,” said the girl, laughing a little, “but a dabbler. I took dabs of travel, like my little visit to Thun. For more than a year I lived in Lausanne, studying my profession, and during that time I made brief excursions here and there.”
“Your profession,” asked Stranleigh, with evident astonishment.
“Yes; can’t you guess what it is, and why I am relating this bit of personal history on such very short acquaintance?”
The girl’s smile was beautiful.
“Don’t you know Europe?” she added.
“I ought to; I’m a native.”
“Then you are aware that Lausanne is a centre of medical teaching and medical practice. I am a doctor, Mr. Stranleigh. Had your wound been really serious, which it is not, and you had come under the care of either physician in Bleachers, he would have sent for me, if he knew I were at home.”
“What you have said interests me very much, Miss Armstrong, or should I say Doctor Armstrong?”
“I will answer to either designation, Mr. Stranleigh, but I should qualify the latter by adding that I am not a practising physician. ‘Professor,’ perhaps, would be the more accurate title. I am a member of the faculty in an eastern college of medicine, but by and by I hope to give up teaching, and devote myself entirely to research work. It is my ambition to become the American Madame Curie.”
“A laudable ambition, Professor, and I hope you will succeed. Do you mind if I tell you how completely wrong you are in your diagnosis of the subject now before you?”
“In my surgical diagnosis I am not wrong. Your wound will be cured in a very few days.”
“Oh, I am not impugning your medical skill. I knew the moment you spoke about your work that you were an expert. It is your diagnosis of me that is all astray. I have no such disbelief in the capacity of woman as you credit me with. I have no desire to place myself under the ministrations of either of those doctors in Bleachers. My desire for the metropolitan delights of that scattered town is of the most commonplace nature. I must buy for myself an outfit of clothes. I possess nothing in the way of raiment except what I am wearing, and part of that you’ve cut up with your scissors.”
“Surely you never came all this distance without being well provided in that respect?”
“No; I had ample supplies, and I brought them with me safely to a point within sight of this house. In fact, I came hither like a sheik of the desert, at the head of a caravan, only the animals were mules instead of camels. All went well until we came to the edge of the forest, but the moment I emerged a shot rang out, and it seemed to me I was stung by a gigantic bee, as invisible as the shooter. The guide said there was a band of robbers intent on plunder, and he and the escort acted as escorts usually do in such circumstances. They unloaded the mules with most admirable celerity, and then made off much faster than they came. I never knew a body of men so unanimous in action. They would make a splendid board of directors in a commercial company that wished to get its work accomplished without undue discussion.”
The girl had risen to her feet.
“And your baggage?” she asked.
“I suppose it is in the hands of the brigands by this time. I left it scattered along the trail.”
“But, Mr. Stranleigh, what you say is incredible. There are no brigands, thieves or road agents in this district.”
“The wound that you dressed so skilfully is my witness, and a witness whose testimony cannot be impugned on cross-examination.”
“There is a mistake somewhere. Why, just think of it; the most energetic bandit would starve in this locality! There is no traffic. If your belongings were scattered along the trail, they are there yet.”
“Then why shoot the belonger of those belongings?”
“That’s just what I must discover. Excuse me for a moment.”
She passed through the house, and the young man heard a shrill whistle blown, which was answered by a call some distance away. The girl returned, and sat down again, her brow perplexed, and presently there came on to the platform a stalwart, good-natured looking man, dressed in what Stranleigh took to be a cowboy costume; at least, it was the kind of apparel he had read about in books of the Wild West. His head was covered with a broad-brimmed slouch hat, which he swept off in deference to the lady.
“Jim,” she said, “did you hear any shooting out by the Bleachers trail about an hour ago?”
“No, Ma’am; I can’t say that I did, except a rifle I shot off.”
“That you shot off! What were you shooting at?”
“Well,” said Jim, with a humorous chuckle, “I guess perhaps it was this gentleman.”
“Why did you wish to murder me?” asked Stranleigh, with pardonable concern.
“Murder you, sir? Why, I didn’t try to murder you. I could have winged you a dozen times while you were riding down to the house, if I’d wanted to. Where were you hit?”
“In the left shoulder.”
“Then that’s all right. That’s what I aimed to do. I just set out to nip you, and scare you back where you came from.”
“But why?” insisted the perplexed Stranleigh.
“You came along with a posse behind you, and I thought you were the sheriff, but I wouldn’t kill even a sheriff unless I had to. I’m the peaceablest man on earth, as Miss Armstrong there will tell you.”
“If that’s your idea of peace,” said Stranleigh, puzzled, “I hope next time I’ll fall among warlike people.”
Jim grinned. It was Miss Armstrong who spoke, and, it seemed to Stranleigh, with unexpected mildness, considering she knew so much of the Eastern States and Europe.
“I understand,” she said, “but next time, Jim, it will be as well merely to fire the gun, without hitting anybody.”
“Oh,” explained Jim, in an off-hand manner, “our folk don’t pay any attention to the like of that. You’ve got to show them you mean business. If this gentleman had come on, the next shot would have hit him where it would hurt, but seeing he was peaceable minded, he was safe as in a church.”
“Is the baggage where he left it?”
“Certainly, Ma’am; do you wish it brought here?”
“Yes; I do.”
“All right, Ma’am; I’ll see to that. It’s all a little mistake, sir,” he said amiably, as he turned to Stranleigh. “Accidents will happen in the best regulated family, as the saying goes,” and with a flourish of the hat he departed.
Miss Armstrong rose as if to leave the verandah. As she did so Stranleigh said in a tone of mild reproach:
“I confess I am puzzled.”
“So am I,” replied the girl, brightly. “I’m puzzled to know what I can offer you in the way of books. Our stock is rather limited.”
“I don’t want to read, Miss Armstrong, but I do want to know why there is such a prejudice here against a sheriff. In the land I came from a sheriff is not only regarded with great respect, but even with veneration. He rides about in a gilded coach, and wears magnificent robes, decorated with gold lace. I believe that he develops ultimately into a Lord Mayor, just as a grub, if one may call so glorious a personage as a sheriff a grub, ultimately becomes a butterfly. We’d never think of shooting a sheriff. Why, then, do you pot at sheriffs, and hit innocent people, out here?”
The girl laughed.
“I saw the Lord Mayor of London once in his carriage, and behind it were two most magnificent persons. Were they sheriffs?”
“Oh, dear no; they were merely flunkeys.”
“Our sheriffs are elected persons, drawn from the politician class, and if you know America, you will understand what that means. Among the various duties of a sheriff is that of seizing property and selling it, if the owner of that property hasn’t paid his debts.”
“They act as bailiffs, then?”
“Very likely; I am not acquainted with legal procedure. But I must go, Mr. Stranleigh, for whatever the position of a sheriff may be, mine is that of assistant to my mother, who is just now preparing the dinner, a meal that, further East, is called lunch. And now, what would you prefer to read? The latest magazine or a pharmaceutical journal?”
“Thank you, Miss Armstrong; I prefer gazing at the scenery to either of them.”
“Then good-bye until dinner time,” whereupon she disappeared into the house.
The meal proved unexpectedly good. There was about it an enticing freshness, and a variety that was surprising when the distance from the house to the nearest market was considered. Stranleigh could not remember any repast he had enjoyed so much, although he suspected that horseback exercise in the keen air had helped his appreciation of it. When he mentioned his gratification at so satisfactory a menu, the girl smiled.
“Plain living and lofty thought is our motto on the ranch,” she said.
“This is anything but plain living,” he replied, “and I consider myself no mean judge in such matters. How far away is your market town?”
“Oh, a market is merely one of those effete contrivances of civilisation. What you buy in a market has been handled and re-handled, and artificially made to look what it is not. The basis of our provender is the farm. All round us here is what economists call, in a double sense of the term, raw material. Farm house fare is often what it should not be because art belongs to the city while nature belongs to the farm. To produce a good result, the two must be united. We were speaking just now of Thun. If, leaving that town, you proceed along the left hand road by the lake, you will arrive at a large institution which is devoted entirely to the art of cookery. The more I progressed with my studies at Lausanne, the more I realised that the basis of health is good food, properly prepared. So I interrupted my medical studies for a time, entered that establishment, and learned to cook.”
“Miss Armstrong, you are the most efficient individual I ever met.”
“You are very complimentary, Mr. Stranleigh, because, like the various meals you have enjoyed in different parts of the world, you must have met a great many people. To enhance myself further in your eyes, I may add that I have brought another much-needed accomplishment to the farm. I am an expert accountant, and can manage business affairs in a way that would startle you, and regarding this statement of mine, I should like to ask you, hoping you won’t think I am impertinent, are you a rich man?”
Stranleigh was indeed startled—she had succeeded in that—and he hesitated before he answered—
“I am considered reasonably well off.”
“I am very glad to hear it, for it has been the custom of my father, who is not a good business man, to charge boarders two or three dollars a week when they come with their guns and fishing tackle. Now, we are in a unique position. We have the advantage of being free from competition. The hotels of New York are as thick as blackberries. They meet competition in its fiercest form, yet the prices they charge are much more per day than we charge for a month. I am determined that our prices shall be equal to New York prices, but I think it is only fair to let any customer know the fact before he is called upon to pay his bill.”
“A very excellent arrangement,” said Stranleigh, heartily, “and in my case there will be an additional account for medical services. Will that be on the basis of professional charges in London, New York, Vienna, Berlin, or Lausanne?”
“Not on the basis of Lausanne, certainly, for there an excellent doctor is contented with a fee of five francs, so if you don’t object, I’ll convert francs into dollars.”
“My admiration for your business capacity is waning, Miss Armstrong. If this is to be an international matter, why choose your own country instead of mine? Transpose your francs into pounds, Professor. There are five francs in a dollar, but five dollars in a pound sterling. Let me recommend to you my own currency.”
“A very good idea, Mr. Stranleigh,” rejoined Miss Armstrong, promptly. “I shall at once take it into consideration, but I hope you won’t be shocked when the final round-up arrives.”
“I shall have no excuse for astonishment, being so honestly forewarned, and now that we are conversing so internationally, I’d like to carry it a little further. In Italy they call an accident a ‘disgrazia,’ and when you read in an Italian paper that a man is ‘disgraced,’ you realise that he has met with an accident. Then the account ends by saying that the patient is guaranteed curable in two days, or a week, or a month, as the case may be. How long, then, doctor, must I rest under this ‘disgrace’?”
“I should say a week, but that’s merely an off-hand guess, as I suppose is the case with the estimate of an Italian physician.”
“I hope your orders won’t be too strict. By the way, has my luggage arrived?”
“It is all in the large room upstairs, but if you have any designs upon it, you are disobeying orders.”
“I must get at a portmanteau that is in one of the bundles.”
“I will fetch what you want, so don’t worry about that, but come and sit on the verandah once more.”
Stranleigh protested, and finally a compromise was arrived at. Miss Armstrong would whistle for Jim, and he would do the unpacking. She saw a shade of distrust pass over Stranleigh’s face, and she reassured him that Jim was the most honest and harmless man in the world, except, perhaps, where sheriffs were concerned.
“Now,” she continued, when he had seated himself, “you have talked enough for one day, so you must keep quiet for the rest of the afternoon. I will do the talking, giving you an explanation of our brigandish conduct.”
“I shall be an interested listener,” said Stranleigh, resignedly. “But permit me, before silence falls, to ask what you may regard an impertinent question. Do you smoke?”
“Goodness, no!” she replied, with widely opened eyes.
“Many ladies do, you know, and I thought you might have acquired the habit during your travels abroad. In that case, I should have been delighted to offer you some excellent cigarettes from my portmanteau.”
Jumping up, the girl laughed brightly.
“Poor man! I understand at last. You shall have the cigarettes in less than five minutes. Give me your keys, please.”
“That particular piece of luggage is not locked. I am so sorry to trouble you, but after such a memorable dinner——”
“Yes, yes; I know, I know!” she cried, as she vanished.
“Interesting girl, that,” murmured Stranleigh to himself, “and unusually accomplished.”
He listened for a whistle, but the first break in the silence was the coming of Miss Armstrong, holding a box of cigars in one hand and a packet of cigarettes in the other.
“Then you didn’t call for help, after all,” said Stranleigh, a shade of reproach in his tone.
“Oh, it was quite easy. By punching the bundles I guessed what they contained, and soon found where the portmanteau was concealed. Now, light up,” she continued, “lean back, and smoke. I’ll do the talking. My father, as I’ve told you, is a very poor business man, and that is why I endeavoured to acquire some knowledge of affairs. He is generous and sympathetic, believing no evil of anyone, consequently he is often imposed upon to his financial disadvantage. Our position as father and daughter is the reverse of what is usual in such relationships. I attempt to guide him in the way he should go, and as a general thing he accepts my advice and acts upon it, but on the occasion of which I speak, I was at work in New York, and knew nothing of the disastrous contract into which he had entered, until it was too late.
“I always come West and spend the vacation on the ranch, and this time brought with me all the money I had saved, but it proved insufficient to cope with the situation. In his early days my father was a mining engineer. He was successful, and might have been a very rich man to-day if—— But that ‘if’ always intervened. Nevertheless, he accumulated money, and bought this ranch, determined to retire.
“The lower part of the ranch is good grazing ground, but the upper or western part is rocky, rising to the foothills. My father was not a success as a rancher, partly because we are too far from the markets, and partly because he chose as cowboys men who did not understand their business. I told you that my father is a sympathetic man. No one ever appealed to him in vain. He has always been very popular, but it seems to me that his friends are always poorer than himself. Thus it came about that miners who knew him, and were out of work, applied for something to do, and he engaged them as cowboys, until he had half a dozen on his pay roll, and thus began the gradual loss of his money. These men were excellent as miners, but useless as cowboys, and there was no one here to teach them their duties, my father being himself a miner. It seemed, then, a dispensation of Providence that as he rambled over the western part of his property he struck signs of silver. He was not mistaken in his prospecting. He and the cowboys took hilariously to their old trade, and worked away at the rocks until all his money was gone.”
“Did they find any real silver?” asked Stranleigh, interested.
“Oh yes, plenty of it,” answered the girl. “It is evident they have opened a very rich mine.”
“Then where is the difficulty?”
“The difficulty is the want of machinery, which there is no capital to purchase. My father tried to get that capital in this district, but there is very little ready money to be obtained out here. He enlisted the interest of Mr. Ricketts, a lawyer in Bleachers, and reputed the only rich man in the town. Ricketts came to the ranch with a mining engineer, and they examined the opening. Seemingly they were not impressed with the contents, and Ricketts advised my father to go East and form a company.
“My father explained his financial situation, and Ricketts, with apparent generosity, offered to lend him five thousand dollars on his note, to be paid on demand, with the ranch as security. Thus my father put himself entirely in the other’s power. Ricketts gave him the address of a lawyer in Chicago, who, he said, would be of assistance to him. The latest word we received from my father is that this lawyer, in one way or another, has got hold of all his money. Father telegraphed to Ricketts for help, which was refused. So he left Chicago on foot, determined to walk home, since he had not even money enough left to pay his fare home. Where he is at present, we have no idea, except that he is making for this ranch.
“Ricketts at once took action to sell the ranch. Apparently he is quite within his legal rights, but there are formalities to be gone through, and one of these is the arrival of the sheriff to seize the property. That arrival the men, headed by Jim, are determined to prevent, and now, perhaps, you understand why you rode into danger when you came from Bleachers this morning.
“When I learnt of my father’s predicament, I went out to Bleachers to see Mr. Ricketts, offering him what money I had brought from New York if he would hold his hand for a year. He refused, and from his conversation I realised he was determined to secure the ranch for himself, and I believe the whole transaction is a plot toward that end.”
“Then the mine must be a valuable one?”
“I am sure it is; indeed, my father could make no mistake in that matter.”
“Well, the position seems very simple after all. What you need, Miss Armstrong, is a change of creditors. You want a creditor who is not in a hurry for his money. In other words, if you could transfer that debt, you would be out of immediate danger. Would you allow me to go into Bleachers to-morrow, and see Mr. Ricketts?”
“Most decidedly not!”
“How much money did you bring with you from New York?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
“I brought just twice that amount, so I think the affair may be arranged, and you can go to Ricketts to-morrow, and take up the note. I think perhaps you had better have five thousand five hundred dollars with you, as there will certainly be some interest and expenses to pay, for if the case is as you state it, Ricketts will be reluctant to part with the document. Is there another lawyer in Bleachers?”
“Yes.”
“Well, get him to accompany you, and make formal tender of the money.”
The girl had reddened while he was speaking, and now she said, in tones of distress—
“I fear you completely misunderstood my object in telling you of my difficulties. My object was not to borrow money, but to explain why Jim Dean shot at you.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly why you spoke as frankly as you did, and I am very much obliged to you for doing so, but you must have no diffidence in accepting the money. It is purely a business transaction, and, as you say, you are a business woman. Therefore, as a matter of business, it would be folly to reject an offer that is to our mutual advantage. The security is ample.”
“That is true, Mr. Stranleigh, but, you see, I have no power, no authority, to give this ranch as security; it belongs to my father.”
“True; but you are not nearly so competent a business woman as you would have me believe. You will receive from Ricketts your father’s promissory note. That you will hand to me, then I shall be your debtor for two thousand dollars. Those two thousand dollars I shall pay as soon as I get some money from New York, and your father will become my debtor for five thousand dollars. All perfectly simple, you see. In the first instance I trust you for three thousand dollars, and in the second instance you trust me for two thousand dollars. After I have paid you the two thousand dollars, I hold the note, and can sell you up whenever I please. I give you my word I won’t do that, though even if I did you would be no worse off than you are now.”
“Very well, Mr. Stranleigh; I will take the money.”
It was several days later when Miss Armstrong returned from Bleachers. Her first interest was to satisfy herself of the patient’s progress. He had been getting on well.
“You are an admirable physician, Miss Armstrong,” he said. “Now let me know whether you are equally capable as a financier.”
“I have failed completely,” she answered, dejectedly. “Mr. Ricketts has refused the money.”
“Did you take the other lawyer with you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Ricketts had no right to refuse, but a different question has arisen. The guide who accompanied you to the ranch brought back news of the shooting. Ricketts guessed at once why you were shot at, and the sheriff has signed an affidavit, or some such instrument, to show that his life, and his men’s lives, are in danger if they go to seize the property, so this complication has been overcome by some order from the legislature, and the personal seizure is waived. The sale is announced to take place in Bleachers two weeks from to-day. Mr. Timmins—that is the other lawyer—fears that Ricketts is within his rights in refusing the money at this stage.”
“This is all very interesting, Miss Armstrong, but we have a fortnight to turn round in.”
“Yes; that is so.”
“I am delighted, for now I shall have the pleasure of trying a fall with the estimable Mr. Ricketts.”