"Then," said Nevis eagerly, "if you'll try it in this instance I'll tell you what I'll do. The thing's in my line of business and I'll find those nine hundred dollars for you."
Florence sat silent, watching him for a few moments. She meant to agree, and though she quite realized that general opinion would have regarded this as tantamount to placing herself in the man's power, that did not trouble her. She had never yet been in any man's power and she did not intend to be.
"Well," she consented at length; "but it mustn't be a favor."
Nevis tactfully declared that it could be done on a purely business footing, with which object he suggested, after a few judicious questions, that she should give him an order for the delivery of so many bushels of wheat after harvest, which she did. That the document was most informal and merely scribbled on a half-sheet of note-paper did not seem to concern him. Then he wrote her out a check.
"I don't mind saying that I'm going to make eight per cent. out of you, which is enough to content me," he explained. "You see, I never let an opportunity go by."
Florence made no comment. Whether or not he would continue to be content with the mere interest on the money was a question with which she would be competent to deal when it arose.
In a few minutes he prepared to take his departure. He bowed over her hand in a manner that was not common on the prairie, and she watched him with a meaning smile when he drove away.
CHAPTER VIII
A FIT OF TEMPER
It was two days later that Nevis led his worn-out horse up the side of one of the deep ravines which every here and there wind through the prairie. It was then about the middle of the afternoon and almost unpleasantly hot in the sheltered hollow. The crest of it shut out the wind that swept the open levels, and the sunshine struck down between the birches, which were just then unfolding lace-like streamers of tiny leaves. There were no other trees except the willows wrapped in a bright emerald flush along the banks of a little creek.