"I guess some folks are mighty stupid when they consider that only the ugly women are clever. There's my niece—well, nobody could call her plain, and you can see how she's taking hold instead of weakening. Some women never show the grit that's in them until they're fighting for their children; but you can look out for trouble, Thurston, if you fool away any chances, while Helen Savine's behind you fighting for her father."
A few days later Henry Leslie, confidential secretary to the Industrial Enterprise Company, sat, with a frown upon his puffy face, in his handsome office. He wore a silk-bound frock coat, a garment not then common in Vancouver, and a floral spray from Mexico in his button-hole; but he was evidently far from happy, and glanced with ill-concealed dismay at the irate specimen of muscular manhood standing before him. The man, who was a sturdy British agriculturalist, had forced his way in, defying the clerks specially instructed to intercept him. Leslie had first set up in business as a land agent, a calling which affords a promising field for talents of his particular description, and having taken the new arrival's money, had, by a little manipulation of the survey lines, transferred to him mostly barren rock and giant trees instead of land for hop culture. It was a game which had been often played before, but the particular rancher was a determined man and had announced his firm intention of obtaining his money back or wreaking summary vengeance on his betrayer.
"Danged if thee hadn't more hiding holes than a rotten, but I've hunted thee from one to one, and now I've found thee I want my brass," shouted the brawny, loud-voiced Briton. Leslie answered truthfully:
"I tell you I haven't got it, even if you had any claim on me, and it's not my fault you're disappointed, if you foolishly bought land before you could understand a Canadian survey plan."
"Then thou'lt better get it," was the uncompromising answer. "Understand a plan! I've stuck to the marked one I got from thee, and there's lawyers in this country as can. It was good soil and maples I went up to see, and how the —— can anybody raise crops off the big stones thou sold me? I'm going to have my rights, and, meantime, I'm trapesing round all the bars in this city talking about thee. There's a good many already as believe me."
"Then you had better look out. Confound you!" threatened Leslie, taking a bold course in desperation. "There's a law which can stop that game in this country, and I'll set it in motion. Anyway, I can't have you making this noise in my private office. Go away before I call my clerks to throw you out."
The effort at intimidation was a distinct failure, for the aggrieved agriculturalist, who was not quite sober, laughed uproariously as he seized a heavy ruler. "That's a good yan," he roared. "Thou darsen't for thy life go near a court with me, and the first clerk who tries to put me out, danged if I don't pound half the life out of him and thee. I'm stayin' here comf'able until I get my money."
He pulled out a filthy pipe, and filled it with what, when he struck a match, turned out to be particularly vile tobacco, and Leslie, who fumed in his chair, said presently:
"You are only wasting your time and mine—and for heaven's sake take a cigar and fling that pipe away. I haven't got the money by me, and it's the former owner's business, not mine, but if you'll call round, say the day after to-morrow, I'll see what we can do."
He named the day, knowing that he would be absent then, and the stranger, heaving his heavy limbs out of an easy chair, helped himself to a handful of choice cigars before he prepared to depart, saying dubiously: