I made no answer, for there was nothing appropriate I could find to say; but it occurred to me that Lucille Haldane might never receive a higher compliment than this lad's unexpectant homage.
"Here is the right one, and you will obliterate the other from your memory," he said, passing me a second photograph. "The fellow who took it knows how to handle a camera."
It was evident he did; and, knowing who he was, the irony of the circumstances impressed me as I examined the picture. "He has an artistic taste and an eye for an effective pose. Are you going to send any copies to your people in England, Cotton?" I said.
"No," answered the lad quietly; "they might not be pleased with it. Well, I dare say, you have guessed long ago that I am one of the legion. Most of my people were soldiers, which was why, when I had two dollars left, I offered the nation my services at Regina; but I am the first of them to wear a police private's uniform."
I nodded sympathetically, and the trooper, who looked away from me out of the window, said: "Talk of the devil! All men, it is said, are equal in this country, but I fancy there's a grade between most of us and your acquaintance, Foster Lane. The fellow has passed the corral, and I can't get out without meeting him."
I nodded with a certain grim sense of anticipation, for I had determined to speak very plainly to Foster Lane, and knew that Cotton could, on occasion, display a refined insolence that was signally exasperating. The next moment Lane came in, red-faced and perspiring, and greeted me with his usual affability.
"I'm on the way to recovery, but unable to ride far, which explains my request for a visit," I said; and Lane waved his large hands deprecatingly.
"Business is business, and you need not apologize, because although I have come two hundred miles you will find first-class expenses charged for in the bill. I can't smoke on horseback. Will you and the trooper try one of these?"
"No, thanks," said Cotton, with an inflection in his voice and a look in his half-closed eyes that would have warned a more sensitive person; but Lane, still holding out the cigar-case, added with mild surprise: "By the price I paid for them they ought to be good."
"I don't doubt it," drawled Cotton, glancing languidly at the speaker. "But a few of what you would call British prejudices still cling to me, and I take cigars and things only from my friends—you see?"