"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?"
Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How does it concern you?
"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off I asked Miss Ismay to marry me."
Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled.
"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended."
They looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Then Hawtrey spoke again.
"In view of what you have just told me why did you want to put me of all people in charge of the Range?" he said.
"I'll be candid," said Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable."
Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face.
"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous."