“Thought I’d pick up a horse or two at one of the ranches I’ll pass and apply for a teaming job. Contractor was asking for haulage tenders; he’s having trouble among the sandhills and muskegs.”
“Then you’ll be taking a wad of money along?”
Jernyngham assented and the trooper looked thoughtful.
“Now,” he cautioned, “there’s a pretty tough crowd at Nelson, and though we stopped any licenses being issued, we’ve had trouble over the running-in of liquor. Then you have a long ride before you through a thinly-settled country. You want to be careful about that money.”
“The settlers are to be trusted.”
“That’s so, but we have reason to believe the rustlers are at work in the district; seem to have been going into the liquor business, and I’ve heard of horses missing. Now that the boys have stopped their branding other people’s calves in Alberta and corralled their leaders, it looks as if the fellows were beginning the game in this part of the country.”
“Thanks,” said Jernyngham. “I may as well take precautions. How would you recommend my carrying the money?”
The trooper made one or two ingenious suggestions as to the safest way of secreting the bills, and Jernyngham, dismounting, carried them out. Soon afterward the trooper struck off across the plain, and the others, riding on, met a farmer who spoke to them as he passed. At length Prescott pulled up his team at the spot where his companion must leave the trail.
“I’ll do what I can with the land, Cyril, and keep an account,” he said. “You might write and let me know how you are getting on.”
They shook hands and Jernyngham trotted away, while Prescott sat watching him for a minute or two. Man and horse were sharply outlined against the moonlit grass. Jernyngham looked very lonely as he rode out into the wilderness. He could hardly have been happy, Prescott thought, in his untidy and comfortless house at the farm; but, after all, it had been a home, and now he was rudely flung adrift. It was true that the man was largely responsible for the troubles that had fallen upon him, but this was no reason for refusing him pity, and Cyril had his strong points. He had staunchly declined to profit by a felicitous change of fortune out of consideration for the relatives who had once disowned and the woman who had deserted him. Jernyngham had been a careless fool, and Prescott suspected that he was not likely to alter much in this respect, but he did not expect others to pay for his recklessness when the reckoning came. Then Prescott started his team.