“Well,” said Clavering languidly, “I saw him, and bantered him a little on his prepossessing friends. Asked him why, when he was at it, he didn’t go to Manitoba for Canadians. Larry didn’t take it nicely.”
“I’m sorry,” said one of the older men. “Larry is one of us, and the last man I’d figure on committing that kind of meanness would be the son of Fremont Grant. Quite sure it’s not a fit of temper? You have not been worrying him, Torrance?”
Torrance closed one hand. “Grant of Fremont was my best friend, and when he died I ’most brought the lad up as a son. When he got hold of his foolish notions it hurt me considerably, and I did what I could to talk him out of them.”
There was a little smile in the faces of some of the men, for Torrance’s draconic fashion of arguing was known to them.
“You put it a little too straight, and he told you something that riled you,” said one.
“He did,” said Torrance grimly. “Still, for ’most two years I kept a curb on my temper. Then one evening I told him he had to choose right then between his fancies and me. I could have no dealings with any man who talked as he did.”
“Do you remember any of it?” asked another man.
“Yes,” said Torrance. “His father’s friends were standing in the way of progress. Land that would feed a thousand families was keeping us in luxury no American was entitled to. This was going to be the poor man’s country, and the plough was bound to come!”
Clavering laughed softly, and there were traces of ironical amusement in the faces of the rest. Very similar predictions had more than once been flung at them, and their possessions were still, they fancied, secure to them. They, however, became grave again, and it was evident that Larry Grant had hitherto been esteemed by them.
“If it had been any one else, we could have put our thumb on him right now,” said one. “Still, I don’t quite figure it would work with Larry. There are too many folks who would stand in with him.”