Vane turned his eyes and attention back to his letter, and Steve shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot. Vane made no headway. He realized that he was not in the least interested in the task under his pen and suddenly wondered, with a disconcerting feeling of futility, if he had ever been sincerely interested in the person for whom this letter was intended. Or was it all part of a game—this unfinished letter and other completed letters?
“Have a seegar, mister,” suggested the man on the threshold, digging fingers into a pocket.
“I’ll smoke a pipe, if it’s all the same to you,” returned Vane. “Come in and sit down, won’t you—if you’re not too busy?”
The other accepted the invitation, selected a comfortable chair, dropped his cap on the floor, lit a cigar and spat neatly into the fire. Vane laid aside his pen, turned an elbow upon ink and paper and lit his pipe.
“Sportin’?” queried Steve, in his best society manner.
“Not as you mean,” replied Vane. “I’m not lookin’ for anything to shoot. Close season, for that matter. But my visit is certainly connected with sport.”
“Zat so,” returned Steve, with honest curiosity and ill-hid suspicion conflicting in his hot brown eyes. “Sport, hey?”
“Yes. I came here to find a horse.”
“A horse? Did you lose one?”
“No. But I have heard of good horses coming from this part of the country, and I hope to be able to buy a young one of the good strain—of the Strawberry Lightning strain. I’ve seen Hassock’s roan filly, but I hear that the real breeder is an old man named Luke Dangler who lives up on Goose Creek. You know him, I suppose. Do you know if he has any young bays of that strain? Bay is the right color—the Willy Horse color. I have a few hundreds that are ready and eager to talk horse.”