He had reached his lodgings, half-turned at the door, and saw behind him the Court tipstaff, who had been sent after him.
“The Judge wants you back at the Court, Mr. Blake,” said the tipstaff.
“All right. Wait till I run up to my room for some papers. I’ll be down in a minute,” and he ran upstairs.
The tipstaff waited cheerfully enough, until he heard the crack of a revolver-shot echo through the passages of the big boarding-house. Then he rushed upstairs—to find that Gavan Blake had gone before another Court than the one that was waiting for him so anxiously.
CHAPTER XXIX.
RACES AND A WIN.
After the great case was over life at Kuryong went on its old round. Mary Grant, now undisputed owner, took up the reins of government, and Hugh was kept there always on one pretext or another.
Considine and his wife stayed a while in the district before starting for England, and were on the best of terms with the folk at the homestead, Peggy’s daring attempt to seize the estate having been forgiven for her husband’s sake.
Mary seemed to take a delicious pleasure in making Hugh come to her for orders and consultations. She signed without question anything that Charlie put before her, but Hugh was constantly called in to explain all sorts of things. The position was difficult in the extreme, although Peggy tried to give Hugh good advice.
“Sure, the girl’s fond of you, Mr. Hugh!” she said, “Why don’t you ask her to marry you? See what a good thing it’d be? She’s only waitin’ to be asked.”
“I’ll manage my own affairs, thank you,” said Hugh. “It isn’t likely I’m going to ask her now, when I haven’t got a penny.” He was as miserable as a man could well be, and was on the point of leaving the station and going back to the buffalo camp in search of solitude, when an unexpected incident suddenly brought matters to a climax. A year had slipped by since William Grant’s death, and the glorious Spring came round again; the river was bank-high with the melting of the mountain-snows, the English fruit-trees were all blossoming, and the willows a-bud. One day the mailman left a large handbill, anouncing the Spring race-meeting at Kiley’s, a festival sacred, as a rule, to the Doyles and the Donohoes, at which no outsider had any earthly chance of winning a race.