d at last, but insisted that the offer was a 'squar' one and would
last always if I ever came back.
"When the year was up I had saved $212 at regular cowboy wages and would
accept no more, though Jordan begged me to take 'sunthun decent.'
"I came West, learned a little of mining--how to hold and hit a drill--in
Colorado, then took a run up into Montana, came down across Idaho and
finally reached this place. Liking the ways of things here I went to
work. I have not missed a dozen shifts in three years."
Browning chuckled at the story, and when Sedgwick ceased he said:
"Isn't it jolly queer that we have been thrown together? My home was in
Devonshire, England. My step-father was a merchant who finally became a
half banker and half broker. When I was a little kid my mother died, and
my father after a while married a widow who had a little daughter five
years younger than myself. My father died, and my stepmother married a
man named Hamlin.
"When I became twenty-two years old, my step-father wanted me to marry
this little girl. I declined, first, because she seemed to me a sister,
and second, I was head and ears in love with the step-daughter of the
village barrister. The girl was my sister's running mate, so to speak,
and though I had never said one word of love to her, my heart was on the
lowest level in the dust at her feet. It was, by Jove!
"In those days I was a bit wild, I guess. I did not get out of school
with much honor. I used to ride steeple-chase and hurdle races and dance
all night. Sometimes, too, I had a scrap, and was careless about the
money I spent. The old barrister--his name was Jenvie--believed I was
the worst kid in the United Kingdom. One evening Rose Jenvie--her real
name was Leighton, she was my glory, you know--had been visiting my
foster-sister, and remaining until after dark, I walked home with her.
It was a starlit night in summer, and we talked as we walked as young
people do. The gate to the path leading up to her house was open, and I
continued to walk by her side until we were almost at the door, when the
'Governor' sprang up from a bench on the little lawn, where he had been
sitting, and, rudely seizing his step-daughter by the arm, broke out with
a torrent of insulting reproaches that she should dare to be walking
alone at night by the side of the most worthless scapegrace in all
England.
"The dear girl tried to explain that my part of the affair was merely an
act of courtesy
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