“Well,” observed Gillis, “if I’ve been the means of addin’ a man like you to the population of B.C., then Jack Gillis has done some good.”
“That’s a real compliment,” smiled Donald.
“I’m goin’ on the mornin’ train,” remarked Gillis. “I’d like to have you travel with me.”
Donald nodded.
Gillis rose with an embarrassed air. “Here I am talkin’ ’bout you and I travellin’ together. I guess you’re one of them tourist fellers, and I don’t suppose you want to go along with a roughneck like me.”
Donald liked this big, bluff Westerner, with his honest face and simple manner. He reached in his pocket and took out the money the sheriff had given him.
“You see that? Well, before this money is gone I’ll have to find a job. And it’s borrowed money, too.”
Gillis studied him carefully. “Well, you got my goat in a way, but there is one thing I do know, and that is that you ain’t no slicker. I’m ’bout twice your age, and I knows a good face when I sees it. I’ll meet you to-morrow mornin’ at the station. I’m goin’ to start callin’ you Donald right now. And what’s more, Jack Gillis is your friend from now until hell freezes over. Good-night, Donald.”
CHAPTER II
Two days later Donald and the Westerner boarded a C.P.R. train in Montreal for the West. They were no sooner comfortably seated in their section of a tourist sleeper than they began rushing westward through the winter evening.