"You'd better ask her, I think. Here comes father."
He rode up on horseback, followed by Siwash Jim, swinging the noose of a lariat in his right hand, as though he had been after horses or cattle.
"Oh, it's you, Tom, is it?" said Fleming, who was looking very well. "I'm glad you're not quite so dead as I was told. And you, Harmer, how are you? Jim, take these gentlemen's horses to the stable. You've come to stay for dinner, of course. I shan't let you go. I heard you did very well gold-gambling last fall. Come in!" For that news went down the country when we went to the Landing for grub.
I followed, wondering a little whether he would have been quite so effusive if I had done badly. But I soon forgot that when I saw Elsie, who had just come out of her room. I thought, when I saw her, that she was a little paler than when we had last met, though perhaps that was due to the unaccustomed cold and the sunless winter; but she more than ever merited the rough tribute which Dave had paid her in Conlan's bar. She was very beautiful to them; but how much more to me, as she came up, a little shyly, and shook hands softly, saying that she was glad that the bad news they had heard of me was not true. I fancied that she had thought of me often during that winter, and perhaps had seen she had been unjust. At any rate, there was a great difference between what she was then and what she was now.
We talked during dinner about the winter, which the three Australians almost cursed; in fact, the father did curse it very admirably, while Elsie hardly reproved his strong language, so much did she feel that forty degrees below zero merited all the opprobrium that could be cast on it. I described our gold-mining adventures and the winter's trapping, which, by the way, had added five hundred dollars to my other money.
I told Fleming that I was now worth, with some I still had at home, more than five thousand dollars, and I could see it gave him satisfaction.
"What do you think of the country now, Mr. Fleming?" I asked; "and how long shall you stay here?"
He shook his head.
"I don't know, my boy," he answered; "I think, in spite of the cold, we shall have to stand another winter here. This summer I must rebuild the barns and stables; there are still a lot of cattle adrift somewhere; and I won't sell out under a certain sum. That's business, you know; and I have just a little about me, though I am an old fool at times, when the girls want their own way."
"What would you advise me to do?" said I, hoping he would give me some advice which I could flatter him by taking. "You see, when one has so much money, it is only the correct thing to make more of it. The question is how to do it."