"The mails would be a whole lot lighter if it wasn't for fake oil and cement propositions and special offers of the world's best authors," he grumbled. "Promoters and publishers seem to consider the small post office the natural breeding ground for suckers. Maybe they're right, too. Hello! Here's something different."
It was a large, square, white envelope, perfectly plain, but of aristocratic finish and thickness.
"Wedding—for the drinks!" growled Casey. "Not so different, after all." He ripped it open ruthlessly with his thumb. "Here's where I get set back a few dollars starting another domestic plant. Blamed if it's any better than—hello!"
It was not a wedding announcement. Instead, it was a check. The amount thereof was the surprising sum of eighty cents, exchange added; and the signature, firm, square, clear-cut as lettering, was "Clyde Burnaby."
"Now what the devil?" Casey exclaimed, and jerked out the accompanying letter.
It was merely a short, friendly note. Miss Burnaby inclosed her check for one year's interest, at 8 per cent. on the loan from Mr. Dunne. She referred to the Wades. Gave an item or two of unimportant personal news. Hoped that his ranch was flourishing, and that he was well: and was his very cordially.
In feminine fashion followed a postscript:
Kitty Wade tells me that you are having trouble with some company which is taking water that you need for your ranch. I hope it isn't serious trouble, though she hinted as much. Do you care to tell me about it?
Casey Dunne sat for some minutes, the check and letter across his knees, while he gazed unblinkingly through the hot sunshine. It was some time since he had given Clyde Burnaby more than an occasional thought; his immediate affairs had been too pressing. Now the vision of her, as he had seen her last, rose before his eyes, and he found it a pleasant recollection. He, whose life since childhood had been passed in the outposts and beyond them, treasured the memories of the few occasions when chance had permitted him to sit with his own kind, to talk to them, to live as he would have lived had not fate forced him to hoe his own row, and chosen for him a row in the new lands.
Of the women he had met in these rare incursions he could recall none who pleased him as well as Clyde Burnaby. Her interest in his affairs pleased him also. He recalled her as she had sat across the aisle in the Pullman, her absolute frigidity to the advances of the would-be Lothario, her haughty stare when she had suspected him of like intent, her perfect composure during the holdup. Little things like that showed the stuff a girl was made of. Nothing foolish or nervous or hysterical about her. And then, subsequently, when he had met her on her own ground, she had endeavoured to put him at his ease. Funny that, but he appreciated it, nevertheless. And she could talk. She didn't giggle and ask inane questions. Nor did she treat him as some sort of a natural curiosity, who might be expected to do something shocking but entertaining at any moment. She was sensible as—well—as sensible as Sheila McCrae herself.