ngs I want to
forget. You see they drove my father out because he had the grit to
marry the woman who loved him instead of another one who had the money,
but you know all that?"

Deringham nodded, and Alton's face showed grim in the moonlight as he
continued: "But what you don't know is how he fought his way uphill in
this country, and what my mother suffered helping him. Oh, yes, I can
remember her well, gentle, brave, and patient as she was, and know what
it must have cost her to camp down alone in the bush, and fight through
the hard winter in the ice and snow. Well, she was too good for this
world, and she just faded out of it before the good time came. I think
they must have a special place for women of her kind in the other one."

Deringham only nodded again, because this type of man was new to him,
and he had learned to keep silent when in doubt; but Alton's big right
hand closed into a fist.

"And now, when I have Somasco, the man who had not a dollar for his
only son leaves me Carnaby," he said. "There. Look out and see.
Timber, lake and clearing, cattle, mills, and crops, the finest ranch
in the district. My father commenced it, and I have finished. The
Almighty made him a man, and he wouldn't sell his birthright to loaf
his days away, overfed, at Carnaby."

Alton dropped his cigar, and laughed a little. "Well, I'm talking like
a fool again. There are times when I can't help it. It's a way of
mine."

Deringham sat still smoking, and thinking rapidly. He had never had
dealings with a man of this description before, but while he surmised
that Alton of Somasco might under some conditions prove himself a
headstrong fool, it was evident that there were limits to his folly.
The man's handiwork spoke for him, and his energy and intentness had
not escaped Deringham's attentions, while the occasional utterances
that might have appeared bombastic coming from other men were redeemed
in his case by the tone of naive sincerity and imperious ring.
Deringham was becoming conscious of a vague respect for and fear of his
companion.

"We are apparently no nearer the answer to my question," he said at
length.

"No," said Alton, smiling. "This thing will take some thinking over.
Carnaby isn't exactly what you call a rich property?"

"It is heavily encumbered," said Deringham, almost too eagerly.

Alton nodded, "Still, it must be worth a little, and would give the
folks who lived there a standing in the ol