“I reckon you’ve lost a good friend,” said Angus, when he saw the face of the figure on the couch. “He certain sure did you a good turn.”
Rodney’s look showed that he wondered just what his friend meant. He was not aware that Angus knew the man.
Seeing that Rodney seemed puzzled, Angus said: “Why, that time he euchred old Denham. You told me then ye didn’t know him.”
“What do you mean? This the man who paid off the mortgage? Oh! if I had known that!”
It all came to Rodney Allison, as light comes to one who has been blind, and is made to see. This man, instead of a knave, had been his friend! He had won the money in gambling that it might be used for a 271 right purpose. He had so used it, and taken from his own purse as well. The sense of having done an injustice is very bitter when the injured has passed beyond one’s power to atone!
When everything had been done that might be, and Allison and McGregor were walking away, the latter said: “I’ve found a feller as is lookin’ fer a good horse. He saw Nat when you rode in this mornin’ an’ he asked no end o’ questions, whar ye lived, how ter git thar an’ said he was thinkin’ o’ buyin’. I ’lowed as how ’twould take a tote o’ money ter buy. Thar goes the identical minion o’ King George, now.”
Rodney looked in the direction indicated. “That knave!” he exclaimed. “I’d never sell Nat to him if I needed the money to buy bread.”
“Don’t like his looks, eh? Yer powerful fussy. He ain’t the best lookin’ feller I ever did see, but I reckon his money’s good.”
The other made no reply. He could not explain his antipathy to Mogridge, for it was he whom Angus had pointed out. So he’s here, thought Rodney, wondering what he could want with a horse.
Allison was not an unduly inquisitive youth, but it may readily be imagined his pulse quickened when he sat down with his mother to open the package which had been given him by the “Chevalier.” It almost seemed that the man had known he was about to die, though his manner had been so cheerful.