"We 'ad a dirty trip hup. The mud's no respecter h'of an H'english gentleman nor h'an American millionaire, don'cher know?" and the pompous Mr. Devonshire handed his hand-grip to Job, while he poked out his shoes for the gray-haired lackey to wipe, with an—
"'Ere, you, clean these feet, bloomin' quick!"
Job and Tony obeyed, but a significant look passed between them.
The next few days things went lively at the Pine Tree Ranch. Some of the mill men were ordered off to scour the mountains for deer, a new Chinese cook came up from Gold City, and the old man and the "H'english gentleman," as Tony called him with a contemptuous chuckle, mounted horses and went riding over the ranch and down to the mine. It took all the grace Job had to see the arrogant boor, with his two hundred and fifty avoirdupois, get Tony to help him mount Bess, and, poking her in the ribs, call out, "What a bloomin' 'orse! Cawn't h'it go!" and ride off toward Lookout Point.
It was astonishing, the politeness Andrew Malden assumed; how he overlooked all the gruffness of his guest and treated him like a prince. Job fairly stared in wonder. It capped the climax when one night—just as, tucked up snug in his bed, Job was dreaming of his last walk home from school with Jane—to feel a rude shake and to see Andrew Malden with excited face standing over him, saying:
"Jump, boy! Dress quick and saddle Bess and ride with all your might to Gold City and catch Joe before the stage leaves. Take this telegram, and tell him to send it as soon as he gets to the plains and Wheatland Depot! Here, up with you!"
It was not over fifteen minutes after that Job was galloping away on Bess' back in the cold, night air, over the muddy roads, stiffened somewhat in the frosty spring night, and lit only by the dim starlight. It was a wild ride, a ride that sent a chill to his very marrow; and if it had not been for his ever-present trust in God, it would have struck terror to his heart. It seemed as if it grew darker and darker. The clouds were creeping across the stars, the great trees hung like a drapery of gloom over the roadway. Faster and faster he rode. Now he soothed Bess as she shied at some suspicious rock that glistened with unmelted snow, or some crackle in the bushes that broke the stillness of the night air; then he urged her on till down the steep Frost Creek road she fairly flew.
It was at the dim hour of dawn, and out of the gloom the world was creeping into view, when Job, with the white foam on Bess, and both heated and freezing himself, rode up to the door of the old brick Palace Hotel, where Joe, just mounting the box of the familiar ancient coach in which Job had once years ago traveled as a passenger, was about to snap his whip over the backs of four doubtful-looking horses which stood pawing the ground as if anxious to be stirring in such frosty air.
A hurried conversation, a white paper passed into Joe's hands, and the long whip snapped, four steeds made a desperate charge forward, an old woman in the coach, wrapped in three big shawls, bounded into air, and Job saw the stage vanish up the hill, with the horses settling down to the conventional snail's pace they had maintained these long years.