Loe raamatut: «The Son of his Father», lehekülg 8

They emerged from the woods, and instinctively Gordon gazed across at the distant ranch. In a moment he was standing stock still staring across the valley. And swiftly there leaped into his eyes a dangerous light. Mallinsbee halted, too. He shaded his eyes, and an ominous cloud settled upon his heavy brows.

"Some one driven out," he muttered, examining narrowly a team and buggy standing at the veranda.

Gordon emitted a sound that was like a laugh, but had no mirth in it.

"It's a man, and he's talking to Miss Mallinsbee on the veranda. It don't take me guessing his identity. That suit's fixed right on my mind."

"David Slosson," muttered Mallinsbee, and he hurried on at an increased pace.

It was after the midday dinner which David Slosson had shared with them.

When her father and Gordon arrived, and before objection could be offered by anybody, Hazel asked her uninvited guest to stay to dinner. David Slosson, without the least hesitation, accepted the invitation. In this manner all opposition from her father was discounted, all display of either man's displeasure avoided. She contrived, with subtle feminine wit, to twist the situation to the ends she had in view. She disliked the visitor intensely. The part she had decided to play troubled her, but she meant to carry it through whatever it cost her, and she felt that an opportunity like the present was not to be missed.

Her father accepted the cue he was offered, but Gordon was obsessed with murderous thoughts which certainly Hazel read, even in the smile with which he greeted the man he had decided was to be his enemy.

To Gordon, David Slosson was even more detestable socially than in business. Here his obvious vulgarity and commonness had no opportunity of disguise. He displayed it in the very explanation of his visit.

"Say," he cried, "Snake's Fall is just the bummest location this side of the Sahara on a Sunday. I was lyin' around the hotel with a grouch on I couldn't have scotched with a dozen highballs. I was hatin' myself that bad I got right up an' hired a team and drove along out here on the off-chance of hitting up against some one interestin'." Then he added, with a glance at Hazel, which Gordon would willingly have slain him for: "Guess I hit."

This was on the veranda. But later, throughout the meal, his offenses, in Gordon's eyes, mounted up and up, till the tally nearly reached the breaking strain.

The man put himself at his ease to his own satisfaction from the start. He addressed all his talk either to Hazel or to her father, and, by ignoring Gordon almost entirely, displayed the fact that antagonism was mutual.

He criticised everything he saw about him, from the simple furnishing of the room in which they were dining, and the food they were partaking of, and its cooking, even to the riding-costume Hazel was wearing. He lost no opportunity of comparing unfavorably the life on the ranch, the life, as he put it, to which her father condemned Hazel, with the life of the cities he knew and had lived in. He passed from one rudeness to another under the firm conviction that he was making an impression upon this flower of the plains. The men mattered nothing to him. As far as Mallinsbee was concerned, he felt he held him in the palm of his hand.

Never in his life had Gordon undergone such an ordeal as that meal, which he had so looked forward to, in the pleasant company of father and daughter. Never had he known before the real meaning of self-restraint. More than all it was made harder by the fact that he felt Hazel was aware of something of his feelings. And the certainty that her father understood was made plain by the amused twinkle of his eyes when they were turned in his direction.

Then came the dénouement. It was at the finish of the meal that Hazel launched her bombshell. Slosson, in a long, coarse disquisition upon ranching, had been displaying his most perfect ignorance and conceit. He finished up with the definite statement that ranching was done, "busted." He knew. He had seen. There was nothing in it. Only in grain or mixed farming. He had had wide experience on the prairie, and you couldn't teach him a thing.

"You must let me show you how fallible is your opinion," said Hazel, with more politeness of language than intent. There was a subtle sparkle in her eyes which Gordon was rejoiced to detect. "Let me see," she went on, "it's light till nearly nine o'clock. You see, I mustn't keep you driving on the prairie after dark for fear of losing yourself." She laughed. "Now, I'll lend you a saddle horse – if you can ride," she went on demurely, "and we'll ride round the range till supper. That'll leave you ample time to get back to Snake's Fall without losing yourself in the dark."

Gordon wanted to laugh, but forced himself to refrain. Mallinsbee audibly chuckled. David Slosson looked sharply at Hazel with his narrow black eyes, and his face went scarlet. Then he forced a boisterous laugh.

"Say, that's a bet, Miss Hazel," he cried familiarly. "If you can lose me out on the prairie you're welcome, and when it comes to the saddle, why, I guess I can ride anything with hair on."

"Better let him have my plug, Sunset," suggested Mallinsbee gutturally.

But Hazel's eyes opened wide. She shook her head.

"I wouldn't insult a man of Mr. Slosson's experience by offering him a cushy old thing like Sunset," she expostulated. Then she turned to Slosson. "Sunset's a rocking-horse," she explained. "Now, there's a dandy three-year-old I've just finished breaking in the barn. He's a lifey boy. Wouldn't you rather have him?" she inquired wickedly.

Slosson's inclination was obvious. He would have preferred Sunset. But he couldn't take a bluff from a prairie girl, he told himself. Forthwith he promptly demanded the three-year-old, and his demand elicited the first genuine smile Gordon had been able to muster since he had become aware of Slosson's presence on the ranch.

Within half an hour one of the ranch hands brought the two horses to the veranda. Hazel's mare, keen-eyed, alert and full of life, was a picture for the eye of a horseman. The other horse, shy and wild-eyed, was a picture also, but a picture of quite a different type.

Hazel glanced keenly round the saddle of the youngster. Then she approached Slosson, who was stroking his black mustache pensively on the veranda, and looked up at him with her sweetest smile.

"Shall I get on him first?" she inquired. "Maybe he'll cat jump some. He's pretty lifey. I'd hate him to pitch you."

But to his credit it must be said that Slosson possessed the courage of his bluff. With a half-angry gesture he left the veranda and took the horse from the grinning, bechapped ranchman. He knew now that he was being "jollied."

"Guess you can't scare me that way, Miss Hazel," he cried, but there was no mirth in the harsh laugh that accompanied his words.

He was in the saddle in a trice, and, almost as quickly, he was very nearly out of it. That cat jump had come on the instant.

"Stick to him," Hazel cried.

And David Slosson did his best. He caught hold of the horn of the saddle, his heels went into the horse's sides, and, in two seconds, his attitude was much that of a shipwrecked mariner trying to balance on a barrel in a stormy sea. But he stuck to the saddle, although so nearly wrecked, and though the terrified horse gave a pretty display of bucking, it could not shed its unwelcome burden. So, in a few moments, it abandoned its attempt.

Then David Slosson sat up in triumph, and his vanity shone forth upon his pale face in a beaming smile.

"He's some horseman," rumbled Mallinsbee, loud enough for Slosson to hear as the horses went off.

"Quite," returned Gordon, in a still louder voice. "If there's one thing I like to see it's a fine exhibition of horsemanship."

Then as the horses started at a headlong gallop down towards the valley, the two men left behind turned to each other with a laugh.

"He called Hazel's bluff," said the girl's father, with a wry thrust of his chin beard.

"Which makes it all the more pleasant to think of the time when my turn comes," said Gordon sharply.

David Slosson was more than pleased with himself. He was so delighted that, by a miraculous effort, he had stuck to his horse, that his vanity completely ran away with him. He would show this girl and her mossback father. They wanted to "jolly" him. Well, let them keep trying.

Once the horses had started he gave his its head, and set it at a hard gallop. He turned in the saddle with a challenge to his companion.

"Let's have a run for it," he cried.

The girl laughed back at him.

"Where you go I'll follow," she cried.

Her words were well calculated. The light of vainglory was in the man's eyes, and he hammered his heels into his horse's flanks till it was racing headlong. But Hazel's mare was at his shoulder, striding along with perfect confidence and controlled under hands equally perfect.

"We'll go along this valley and I'll show you our next year's crop of beeves," cried Hazel, later. "They're away yonder, beyond that southern hill, guess we'll find half of them around there. You said ranching was played out, I think."

"Right ho," cried the man, with a sneering laugh. "Guess you'll need to convince me. Say, this is some hoss."

"Useful," admitted Hazel, watching with distressed eyes the man's lumbering seat in the saddle.

They rode on for some moments in silence. Then Hazel eased her hand upon the Lady Jane, and drew up on the youngster like a shot from a gun.

"We'll have to get across this stream," she declared, indicating the six-foot stream along which they were riding. "There's a cattle bridge lower down which you'd better take. There it is, away on. Guess you can see it from here."

"What are you goin' to do?" asked the man sharply. He was expecting another bluff, and was in the right mood to call it, since his success with the first.

But Hazel had calculated things to a nicety. She owed this man a good deal already for herself. She owed him more for his impertinent ignoring of Gordon, and also for his disparagement of the ranch life she loved.

Without a word she swung her mare sharply to the left. A dozen strides, a gazelle-like lifting of the round, brown body, and the Lady Jane was on the opposite bank of the stream.

Before David Slosson was aware of her purpose, and its accomplishment, his racing horse, still uneducated of mouth, had carried him thirty or forty yards beyond the spot where Hazel had jumped the stream. At length, however, he contrived to pull the youngster up.

He smiled as he saw the girl on the other side of the stream. He remembered her suggestion of the bridge, and he shut his teeth with a snap. The stream was narrower here, so he had an advantage which, he believed, she had miscalculated. He took his horse back some distance and galloped at the stream. Hazel sat watching him with a smile, just beyond where he should land. His horse shuffled its feet as it came up to the bank. Then it lifted. Slosson clung to the horn of the saddle. Then the horse landed, stumbled, fell, hurling its rider headlong in a perfect quagmire of swamp.

Slosson gathered himself up, a mass of mud and pretty well wet through. Hazel was out of the saddle in a moment and offering him assistance with every expression of concern. She came to the edge of the swamp and reached out her quirt. The man ignored it. He ignored her, and scrambled to dry ground without assistance.

"I told you to take the bridge," Hazel cried shamelessly. "You knew you were on a young horse. Oh dear, dear! What a terrible muss you're in. My, but my daddy will be angry with me for – for letting this happen."

Her apparently genuine concern slightly mollified the man.

"I thought you were putting up another bluff at me, Miss Hazel," he said, still angrily. "Say, you best quit bluffing me. I don't take 'em from anybody."

"Bluff? Why, Mr. Slosson, I couldn't bluff you. I – I warned you. Same as I did about the cat-jumping your horse put up. Say, this is just dreadful. We'll have to get right back, and get you dried out and cleaned. I guess that horse is too young for a – city man. I ought to have given you Sunset. He'd have jumped that stream a mile – if you wanted him to. Say – there, I'll have to round up your horse, he's making for home."

In a moment Hazel was in the saddle again, and the man alternately watched her and scraped the thick mud off his clothes.

He was decidedly angry. His pride was outraged. But even these things began to pass as he noted the ease and skill with which she rounded up the runaway horse. She was doing all she could to help him out, and the fact helped to further mollify him. After all, she had warned him to take the bridge. Perhaps he had been too ready to see a bluff in what she had suggested. After all, why should she attempt to bluff him? He remembered how powerful he was to affect her father's interests, and took comfort from it.

She came back with the horse and dismounted.

"Say," she cried, in dismay, "that dandy suit of yours. It's all mussed to death. I'm real sorry, Mr. Slosson. My word, won't my daddy be angry."

The man began to smile under the girl's evident distress, and, his temper recovered, his peculiar nature promptly reasserted itself.

"Say, Miss Hazel – oh, hang the 'miss.' You owe me something for this, you do, an' I don't let folks owe me things long."

"Owe?" Hazel's face was blankly astonished.

"Sure." The man eyed her in an unmistakable fashion.

Suddenly the girl began to laugh. She pointed at him.

"Guess we'll need to get you home and cleaned down some before we talk of anything else I owe. That surely is something I owe you. Here, you get up into the saddle. I'll hold your horse, he's a bit scared. We'll talk of debts as we ride back."

But Slosson was in no mood to be denied just now. Although his anger had abated, he felt that Hazel was not to go free of penalty. He came to her as though about to take the reins from her hand, but, instead, he thrust out an arm to seize her by the waist.

Then it was that a curious thing happened. The young horse suddenly jumped backwards, dragging the girl with it out of the man's reach. It had responded to the swift flick of Hazel's quirt, and left the man without understanding, and his amorous intentions quite unsatisfied. The next moment the girl was in her own saddle and laughing down at him.

"I forgot," she cried, "you'd just hate to have your horse held by a – girl. You best hurry into the saddle, or you'll contract lung trouble in all that wet."

Slosson cursed softly. But he knew that she was beyond his reach in the saddle. A tacit admission that, at least here, on the ranch, she dominated the situation.

"And I've never been able to show you those beeves, and convince you about ranching," Hazel sighed regretfully later on, as they rode back towards the ranch. But her sigh was sham and her heart was full of laughter.

She was thinking of the delight she would witness in Gordon's eyes, when he beheld the much besmirched suit of this man, to whom he had taken such a dislike.

CHAPTER XII
THINKING HARD

The days slipped by with great rapidity. They passed far too rapidly for Gordon. The expectation of Silas Mallinsbee that David Slosson would eventually listen to reason, and accept terms for himself similar to those agreeable to him on behalf of the railroad, showed no sign of maturing. The firmness of his front in no way seemed to affect the grafting agent, and from day to day, although the rancher and his assistant waited patiently for a definite dénouement, nothing occurred to hold out promise one way or another. Mallinsbee said very little, but he watched events with wide-open eyes, and not altogether without hope that the man would be brought to reason. His eyes were on Hazel, smiling appreciation, for Hazel was at work using every art of which she was capable to frustrate any opposition to her father's plans, and to help on, as she described it, the "good work."

"I'm a 'sharper' in this, Mr. Van Henslaer," she declared, in face of one of Gordon's frequent protests. "I'm no better than David Slosson. And I – I want you to understand that. I think your ideas of chivalry are just too sweet, but I want you to look with my eyes. We're a bunch of most ordinary folk who want to win out. If you and my daddy thought by burying him, dead or alive, you could beat his hand, why, I guess it would take an express locomotive to stop you. Well, I'm out to try and put him out of harm's way in my own fashion. If I can't do it, why, he'll find I'm not the dandy prairie flower he's figuring I am just now. That's all. So meanwhile get on with any old plans you can find up your sleeve. By hook or crook we've got to make good."

By this expression of the girl's extraordinary determination doubtless Gordon should have been silenced. But he was not silenced, nor anything like it. The truth was he was in love – wildly, passionately, jealously in love. It nearly drove him to distraction to watch the way in which, almost daily, this man Slosson drove out to see Hazel and take her out for buggy rides or horse riding. Not only that, he and her father were practically ignored by the man. They were just so much furniture in the office, and when by any chance the agent did deign to notice them there was generally something offensive in his manner of address.

Worst of all, as the outcome of Hazel's campaign there were no signs that matters were one whit advanced towards the successful completion of their project, and the days had already grown into weeks. All Gordon could do was to busy himself with formulating wild and impossible schemes for beating this creature. And a hundred and one strenuous possibilities occurred to him, all of which, however, offered no suggestion of bending the man, only of breaking him. The sum and substance of all his efforts was a deadly yearning to kill David Slosson, kill him so dead as to spoil forever his chances of resurrection.

This was much the position when, nearly three weeks later, in response to a peremptory note from Slosson in the morning, Silas Mallinsbee decided that Gordon should deal with him on a business visit in the afternoon.

Oh yes, Gordon would interview him. Gordon would deal with him. Gordon would love it above all things. Was he given a free hand?

But Mallinsbee smiled into the fiery eyes of the young giant and shook his head, while Hazel looked on at the brewing storm with inscrutable eyes of amusement.

"There's no free hand for anybody in this thing, Gordon, boy," said Mallinsbee slowly. "And I don't guess there's any crematoriums or undertakers' corporation around Snake's Fall. Anyway, Hip-Lee wouldn't do a thing if you asked him to bury a white man."

"White man?" snorted Gordon furiously.

"Remember you're – fighting for my daddy as well as yourself, Mr. Van Henslaer," said Hazel earnestly.

Gordon sighed.

"I'll remember," he said. And his two friends knew that the matter was safe in his hands.

Left alone in his office, Gordon endured an unpleasant hour after his dinner. It was not the thoughts of his coming interview that disturbed him. It was Hazel. It was of her he was always thinking, when not actually engaged upon any duty. Every day made his thoughts harder to bear.

For awhile he sat before his desk, leaning back in his chair, gazing blankly at the wooden wall opposite him. She was always the same to him; his worst fits of temper seemed to make no difference. She only smiled and humored or chided him as though he were some big, wayward child. Then the next moment she would ride off with this vermin Slosson, full of merry sallies and smiling graciousness, whom, he knew, if she had any right feeling at all, she must loathe and despise. Well, if she did loathe him, she had a curious way of showing it.

He thrust his chair back with an angry movement, and walked off into the bedroom opening out of the office. He looked in. The neatness of it, the scent of fresh air pouring in through its open window, meant nothing to him. He saw none of the work of the guiding hand which, in preparing it, had provided for his comfort. Hip-Lee kept it clean and made his bed, the same as he cooked his food. It did not occur to Gordon to whom Hip-Lee was responsible.

There were pictures on the walls, and it never occurred to Gordon that these had been taken from Hazel's own bedroom at the ranch – for his enjoyment. Nor was he aware that the shaving-glass and table had been specially purchased by Hazel for his comfort. There were a dozen and one little comforts, none of which he realized had been added to the room since it had been set aside for his use.

He flung himself upon the bed, all regardless of the lace pillow-sham which had once had a place on Hazel's own bed. He was in that frame of mind when he only wanted to get through the hours before Hazel's sunny presence again returned to the office. He was angry with her. He was ready to think, did think, the hardest thoughts of her; but he longed, stupidly, foolishly longed for her return, although he knew that, with her return, fresh evidence of Slosson's attentions to her and of her acceptance of them would be forthcoming.

He was only allowed another ten minutes in which to enjoy his moody misery. At the end of that time he heard the rattle of wheels beyond the veranda, and sprang from his couch with the battle light shining in his eyes.

But disappointment awaited him. It was not Slosson who presented himself. It was the altogether cheerful face of Peter McSwain which appeared at the doorway.

"Say," he cried. Then he paused and glanced rapidly round the room. "Ain't Mallinsbee around?" he demanded eagerly.

Gordon shook his head.

"Business?" he inquired. "If it's business I'm right here to attend to it."

Peter hesitated.

"I s'pose you'd call it business," he said, after a considering pause, during which he took careful stock of Mallinsbee's representative. Then he went on, with a suggestion of doubt in his tone, "You deal with his business – confidential?"

Gordon smiled in spite of his recent bitterness. He moved over to his desk and sat down, at the same time indicating the chair opposite him. As soon as McSwain had taken his seat Gordon leaned forward, gazing straight into the man's always hot-looking face.

"See here, Mr. McSwain, we're at a deadlock for the moment, as maybe you know. Later it'll straighten itself out. I can speak plainly to you, because you're a friend of Mr. Mallinsbee, and you're interested with us in this deal. I'm here to represent Mr. Mallinsbee in everything, even to dealing with the railroad people, so anything you've got to say, why, just go ahead. For practical purposes you are talking to Mr. Mallinsbee."

The disturbed Peter sighed his relief.

"I'm glad, because what I've got to say won't keep. If you folks don't get a cinch on that dago-lookin' Slosson feller the game's up. He's askin' options up at Snake's. He's not buyin' the land yet, just lookin' for options. Maybe you know I got two plots on Main Street, besides my hotel. Well, he's made a bid for options on 'em for two months. He says other folks are goin' to accept his offer. There's Mike Callahan, the livery man. Slosson's been gettin' at him, too. Mike come along and told me, and asked what he should do. I guessed I'd run out and see Mallinsbee. If ther' ain't anything doin' here at Buffalo, why, it's up to us to accept."

The man mopped his forehead with a gorgeous handkerchief. His eyes were troubled and anxious. He felt he would rather have dealt with Mallinsbee. This youngster didn't look smart enough to deal with the situation.

Gordon was tapping the desk with a penholder. He was thinking very hard. He knew that the definite movement had come at last, and that it was adverse to their interests. This was the reply to Mallinsbee's resolve. For the moment the matter seemed overwhelming. There seemed to be no counter-move for them to make. Then quite suddenly he detected a sign of weakness in it.

"Say," he demanded at last, "why does the man want options? I take it options are to safeguard him in case he wants to buy. This thing looks better than I thought. He's guessing he may quarrel with us. He's thinking maybe we won't come to terms. He's worrying that the news of that will get around, and that, in consequence, up will go prices in Snake's. That'll mean the railroad 'll have to pay through the nose, and he'll get into trouble if they have to buy up there. You see, the bedrock of this layout is – this place has to boom anyway, and they've got to get in either here or at Snake's."

Peter rubbed his hands. His opinion of Gordon began to undergo revision.

"Then what are we to do?" The anxiety in his eyes was lessening.

Gordon sprang from his seat, and brought one hand down on his desk with a slam.

"Do? Why, let him go to hell. Refuse him any option," he cried fiercely. "Here, I'll tell you what you do. And do it right away. How do you stand with the folks up there?"

"Good. They mostly listen when I talk," said Peter, with some pride.

"Fine!" cried Gordon. "We'll roast him some. See here, I know you're holding with us. I know Mike is, and several others. Your interests are far and away bigger here than in Snake's. So you'll get busy right away. You'll get all the boys together who've got interests here. Tell 'em we've fallen out over the railroad deal with Slosson. Tell 'em to get the town together, and then let 'em explain about this rupture. I'll guarantee the rupture's complete. Make 'em refuse all options and boost their prices for definite sale, and threaten to raise 'em sky-high unless the railroad make a quick deal. Put a fancy figure on your land at which he daren't buy. You get that? Now I'll show you how we'll stand. He's got to come in on this place then. He'll have to buy at our price, because —the railroad must get in. You must play the town folks who've got land there, but none here, to force the prices up on the strength of our quarrel with the railroad, and I'll guarantee that quarrel's complete this afternoon. Well?"

The last vestige of Peter's worry had disappeared. His eyes shone admiringly as he gazed at the smiling face of the man who had conceived so unscrupulous a scheme. He nodded.

"The railroad's got to get in," he agreed. "If they can't get in here they've got to there. Offer him boom prices there, and if he closes – which he daren't– we make our bits, anyway. If he don't, then he's got to buy here on your terms, and – the depot comes here, and the boom with it. Say, it's bright. An' you'll guarantee that scrap up?"

"Sure."

Peter sprang to his feet.

"That's Mallinsbee's – word?"

"Absolutely."

The man's hot face became suddenly hotter, and his eyes shone.

"I'll get right back and we'll hold a meetin' to-night. Say, we've got to fool those who ain't got interests here – they ain't more than fifty per cent. – and then we'll send prices sky-high. You can bet on it, Mr. Van Henslaer, sir. All it's up to you to do is to turn him down and drive him our way. We'll drive him back to you. It's elegant."

Gordon gave a final promise as they shook hands when Peter had mounted his buggy. Then the hotel proprietor drove off in high glee.

Gordon went back to his office without any sensation of satisfaction. He had committed Mallinsbee to a definite policy that might easily fall foul of that individual's ideas. But he had committed him, and meant to carry the thing through against all opposition.

The cue had been too obvious for him to neglect. It was Slosson who had made a false move. He was temporizing, instead of acting on a fighting policy, and it was pretty obvious to him that his temporizing was due to his growing regard for Hazel. The man was mad to ask for options. He was a fool – a perfect idiot. No, the opportunity had been too good to miss. If Slosson had shown weakness, he did not intend to do so. Then, as he sat down and further probed the situation, a real genuine sensation of satisfaction did occur. There would no longer be any necessity for Hazel to attempt to play the man.

All in a moment he saw the whole thing, and a wild delight and excitement surged through him. He was in the heart of a youngster's paradise once more. The sun streaming in through the window was one great blaze of heavenly light. The world was fair and joyous, and, for himself, he was living in a palace of delight.

It was in such mood that he heard the approach of David Slosson.

The agent entered the office with all the arrogance of a detestable victor. His first words set Gordon's spine bristling, although his welcoming smile was amiability itself.

Slosson glanced round the room, and, discovering only Gordon, flung himself into Mallinsbee's chair and delivered himself of his orders.

"Say, you best have your darned Chinaman take my horse around back an' feed him hay. Where's Mallinsbee?"

Gordon assumed an almost deferential air, but ignored the order for the horse's care.

"I'm sorry, but Mr. Mallinsbee won't be around this afternoon. He's going up in the hills on a shoot," he lied shamelessly. "Maybe for a week or two. Maybe only days."

"What in thunder? Say, was he here this morning? I sent word I was coming along."

Slosson's black eyes had narrowed angrily, and his pasty features were shaded with the pink of rising temper.

Gordon's eyes expressed simple surprise.

"Sure, he was here. Your note got along 'bout eleven. He guessed he couldn't stop around for you. You see, a few caribou have been seen within twenty miles of the ranch. They don't wait around for business appointments."

Slosson brought one fist down on the arm of his chair, and in a burst of anger almost shouted at the deferential Gordon.

"Caribou?" he exploded. "What in thunder is he chasin' caribou for when there's things to be settled once and for all that won't keep? Caribou? The man's crazy. Does he think I'm going to wait around while he gets chasin' – caribou?"

Gordon maintained a perfect equanimity, but he wanted to laugh badly. He felt he could afford to laugh.