"I have done it regularly, and was glad to get the opportunity."

He was conscious of a certain change in Wickersham's manner toward him.

As they drove along he asked Wickersham about Norman and his people, but the other answered rather curtly.

Norman had married.

"Yes." Keith had heard that. "He married Miss Caldwell, didn't he? She was a very pretty girl."

"What do you know about here?" Wickersham asked. His tone struck Keith.

"Oh, I met her once. I suppose they are very much in love with each other?"

Wickersham gave a short laugh. "In love with Norman! Women don't fall in love with a lump of ice."

"I do not think he is a lump of ice," said Keith, firmly.

Wickersham did not answer at first, then he said sharply:

"Well, she's worth a thousand of him. She married him for his money.

Certainly not for his brains."

"Norman has brains--as much as any one I know," defended Keith.

"You think so!"

Keith remembered a certain five minutes out behind the stables at Elphinstone.

He wanted to ask Wickersham about another girl who was uppermost in his thoughts, but something restrained him. He could not bear to hear her name on his lips. By a curious coincidence, Wickersham suddenly said: "You used to teach at old Rawson's. Did you ever meet a girl named Yorke--Alice Yorke? She was down this way once."

Keith said that he had met "Miss Yorke." He had met her at Ridgely Springs and also in New York. He was glad that it was dark, and that Wickersham could not see his face. "A very pretty girl," he hazarded as a leader, now that the subject was broached.

"Yes, rather. Going abroad--t.i.tle-hunting."

"I don't expect Miss Yorke cares about a t.i.tle," said Keith, stiffly.

"Mamma does. Failing that, she wants old Lancaster and perquisites."

"Who does? Why, Mr. Lancaster is old enough to be her father!"

"Pile's old, too," said Wickersham, dryly.

"She doesn't care about that either," said Keith, shortly.

"Oh, doesn't she! You know her mother?"

"No; I don't believe she does. Whatever her mother is, she is a fine, high-minded girl."

Ferdy gave a laugh which might have meant anything. It made Keith hot all over. Keith, fearing to trust himself further, changed the subject and asked after the Rawsons, Wickersham having mentioned that he had been staying with them.

"Phrony is back at home, I believes She has been off to school. I hear she is very much improved?"

"I don't know; I didn't notice her particularly," said Wickersham, indifferently.

"She is very pretty. Jake Dennison thinks so," laughed Keith.

"Jake Dennison? Who is he?"

"He's an old scholar of mine. He is inside now on the front seat; one of your friends."

"Oh, that's the fellow! I thought I had seen him before. Well, he had better try some other stock, I guess. He may find that cornered. She is not going to take a clod like that."

Wickersham went off into a train of reflection.

"I say, Keith," he began unexpectedly, "maybe, you can help me about a matter, and if so I will make it worth your while."

"About what matter?" asked Keith, wondering.

"Why, about that old dolt Rawson's land. You see, the governor has got himself rather concerned. When he got this property up here in the mountains and started to build the railroad, some of these people here got wind of it. That fool, Rhodes, talked about it too much, and they bought up the lands around the old man's property. They think the governor has got to buy 'em out. Old Rawson is the head of 'em. The governor sent Halbrook down to get it; but Halbrook is a fool, too. He let him know he wanted to buy him out, and, of course, he raised. You and he used to be very thick. He was talking of you the other night."

"He and I are great friends. I have a great regard for him, and a much higher opinion of his sense than you appear to have. He is a very shrewd man."

"Shrewd the deuce! He's an old blockhead. He has stumbled into the possession of some property which I am ready to pay him a fair price for. He took it for a cow-pasture. It isn't worth anything. It would only be a convenience to us to have it and prevent a row in the future, perhaps. That is the only reason I want it. Besides, his t.i.tle to it ain't worth a ----, anyhow. We have patents that antedate his. You can tell him that the land is not worth anything. I will give you a good sum if you get him to name a price at, say, fifty per cent. on what he gave for it. I know what he gave for it. You can tell him it ain't worth anything to him and that his t.i.tle is faulty."

"No, I could not," said Keith, shortly.

"Why not?"

"Because I think it is very valuable and his t.i.tle perfect. And he knows it."

Wickersham glanced at him in the dusk.

"It isn't valuable at all," he said after a pause. "I will give you a good fee if you will get through a deal for it at any price we may agree on. Come!"

"No," said Keith; "not for all the money you own. My advice to you is to go to Squire Rawson and either offer to take him in with you to the value of his lands, or else make him a direct offer for what those lands are really worth. He knows as much about the value of those lands as you or Mr. Halbrook or any one else knows. Take my word for it."

"Rats!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Wickersham, briefly. "I tell you what," he added presently: "if he don't sell us that land he'll never get a cent out of it. No one else will ever take it. We have him cornered. We've got the land above him, and the water, too, and, what is more, his t.i.tle is not worth a d.a.m.n!"

"Well, that is his lookout. I expect you will find him able to take care of himself."

Wickersham gave a grunt, then he asked Keith suddenly:

"Do you know a man named Plume over there at Gumbolt?"

"Yes," said Keith; "he runs the paper there."

"Yes; that's he. What sort of a man is he?"

Keith gave a brief estimate of Mr. Plume: "You will see him and can judge for yourself."