e. Uncharitable persons said that he dealt more poker.
He was a good-looking chap, after a fashion, who affected cowboy garb,
rode a good horse, was locally known and considered himself a devil
among the girls, and generally tried to live up to the reputation of a
dead-game sport.

The third man, whom neither Angus nor Dave recognized, was a
nondescript, sandy individual with drooping shoulders, a drooping nose
above a drooping moustache which but partially concealed a drooping
mouth. On the whole, both Garland and this stranger seemed uncongenial
companions for Mr. Braden.

That celebrity grunted as he climbed down. He was a fleshy man of middle
age, clean shaven, carefully dressed, with small, somewhat fishy eyes.
He took Angus' brown, hardened paw in a soft, moist palm, putting his
left hand on his shoulder in a manner which he intended to be
sympathetic and protecting; but at which Angus squirmed inwardly and
grew rigid outwardly, for in common with normal boys he hated the touch
of a stranger.

"And so," said Mr. Braden in a short-winded, throaty voice which held
an occasional curious pant like an old-time camp meeting exhorter, "and
so this is Angus! It is a matter of great regret to me, my boy, that I
was absent at the time of your bereavement. You and your young sister
and your young brother have my heartfelt sympathy in this your time of
tribulation--huh. Your father was a very dear friend of mine, a man in a
thousand, one of nature's noblemen. 'We ne'er shall look upon his like
again,' as the poet truly remarks. However, there is no use crying
over--that is, the Lord giveth and taketh away--huh, as you have been
taught, no doubt. As executor of your father's will my dear boy, I
regard myself as in loco parentis, and I hope you will regard me in that
way, too."

He beamed most benevolently, but Angus was unimpressed. Mr. Braden, if
he had only known it, could not have made a worse start. A quiet word of
sympathy or a firm grip of the hand without words would have gone far.
As it was, he quite failed to inspire liking or confidence.

They went to the house together, where Mr. Braden said much the same
thing over again to Jean, and patted her head. And young Turkey,
unwarily peeping through the door, was called in and addressed as "my
little man" and patted also; which attentions he acknowledged with a
fierce scowl and a muttered word, which fortunately Mr. Braden did not
hear.

But these preliminaries ov