Nevis felt unpleasantly weary. Although a man of fine proportions, he did not care for physical exertion and avoided it as far as possible; but the commercial instinct was strong in him and he had driven a long way in pursuit of money during the last few days. It was supposed that he picked up a good deal of it in the most unlikely as well as the more obvious places, for he was troubled by few scruples and was endued with the faculty of getting money. He was a young man, evidently of excellent education, though nobody seemed to know where he had received it or where he came from. Beginning as an implement dealer and general mortgage broker on a humble scale two or three years earlier, he had extended his field of operations rapidly.
It appears to be an unfortunate fact that the grip of the money-lender is firmly fastened on the small agriculturalist in many countries, and, strange to say, perhaps more particularly in those where the soil he tills is his own. In the new wheat-lands of the West the possessions of the small farmers and ranchers on both sides of the frontier are as a rule mortgaged to the hilt, or at least they were a few years ago. They lived, and no more, for when the seasons vouchsafed them a bountiful harvest, storekeeper, land agency man, or mortgage jobber usually swept the proceeds into his coffer. It must, nevertheless, be said that many a man would be forced to abandon the struggle after an untimely frost in fall without the money-lender's help, and that the latter has often to face a serious hazard which varies with the weather.
Nevis was half-way up the slope when his jaded horse refused to go on, and he sat down on a fallen birch, wondering where he could borrow another one or, if this were not possible, how he could reach the settlement. He was then, he supposed, eight or nine miles from the nearest farm, and it seemed very probable that even if he succeeded in reaching it every horse would be engaged in plowing. He had no provisions with him, and he had eaten nothing since breakfast that morning. He was unpleasantly conscious of this fact, for he usually lived well.
A few minutes later a drumming of hoofs fell across the birches from the plain above, and he saw a team swing over the brink of the declivity. For a moment or two the horses disappeared among the trees, but by the rapid beat of hoofs which mingled with the rattle of wheels they seemed to be coming down at a gallop. Nevis was aware that the prairie farmers as a rule wasted very little time in breaking young horses, but harnessed them to plow or wagon as soon as they were amenable to any control at all.
As the team above broke out furiously from among the trees a hoarse shout reached him directing him to pull his buggy clear; but he decided to let it stay exactly where it was. He fancied that the driver, who could not get by, could stop his team if he made a determined effort, and this surmise proved correct, for a minute or two later Thorne, braced backward on the driving-seat, looked down at him with a wrathful face.
"What did you stop me for? Couldn't you get out of the way?" he asked.
"Why were you driving at that breakneck pace?"
"A jack-rabbit bolted right under Volador's feet. I'll get on again if you'll move your buggy."
Nevis sat still.
"Are you open to earn a few dollars?"