Cranston promptly rose. "Spoken like a man, my lad," he said laconically. "I'll say no more. Good-night to ye." He strode away.
IV
THE CONJUROR
Morning breaks, one awakes refreshed and quiescent, and, wondering a little at the heats and disturbances of the day before, makes a fresh start. Mary was not to be seen about the fort, and Jack presently learned that she and Davy had departed on horseback at daybreak for the Indian camp at Swan Lake. He was relieved, for, after what had happened, the thought of having to meet Mary and adjust himself to a new footing made him uncomfortable.
Jack's self-love had received a serious blow, and he secretly longed for something to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes. At the same time he was not moved by any animosity toward Cranston, the instrument of his downfall; on the contrary, though he could not have explained it, he felt decidedly drawn toward the grim trader, and after a while he sheepishly entered the store in search of him. He found Cranston quite as diffident as himself, quite as anxious to let bygones be bygones. There was genuine warmth in his handclasp.
They made common cause in deriding the gubernatorial party.
"Lord love ye!" said Cranston. "Never was an outfit like to that! Card-tables, mind ye, and folding chairs, and hanging lamps, and a son-of-a-gun of a big oil-stove that burns blue blazes! Fancy accommodating that to a horse's back! I've sent out to round up all the company horses. They'll need half a regiment to carry that stuff."
"What's the governor's game up here?" asked Jack.
"You've got me," said Cranston. "Coal lands in the canyon, he says."
"That's pretty thin," said Jack. "It doesn't need a blooming governor and his train to look at a a bit of coal. There's plenty of coal nearer home."