t this envoy. With this idea
in mind he said,

"If Mr. Leland has any business with me--"

Hume laughed his short, insolent laugh.

"I didn't say I came on his business," he said.

"I just stayed over there last night and came on this morning, early,
to catch you before you left the house. It's my own business, Shandon.
I'm not in the habit of taking other men's worries on my shoulders."

"What is it?"

"Just this!" coolly. "Whenever I hear of any money lying around loose
it's as good as mine unless some other fellow beats me to it. You must
have done a whole lot of talking; anyway word has gone all over the
country, clean down to my place and beyond, that you're putting on a
horse race. How about it?"

"I don't see just where you come in?"

"You will in a minute if you care to. I hear the race is to be pulled
off the first thing in the spring, as soon as the snow's gone? How
about it?"

"Correct."

"You're going to ride, of course?"

"I am."

"Little Saxon?"

"Yes."

Hume eased himself in the saddle and looked down at Shandon keenly. A
little sneeringly he demanded,

"What are you going to make it? A little penny ante game?"

Shandon stared at him curiously. Hume laughed again under his gaze and
said arrogantly, after the born manner of the man,

"If you'll make the stakes worth a man's time I'll make you hunt your
hole, Shandon."

A little flush crept up into Shandon's cheeks and his eyes hardened.
It would be so easy to quarrel again with this man; the very sight of
him, supremely egotistical and contemptuous, stirred a natural dislike
into something very close to positive hatred. But these days he was
making it his business to hold himself in check, he was turning his
back against the old headlong ways, and he said quietly,

"Make your proposition. I see you've got one to make."

"I'll ride you any race you like, anywhere you like and at any time;
provided it's a gentleman's game and not penny ante."

"Done," answered Shandon promptly. Had he refused it would have been
the first time in his life he had refused a wager offered as this one
was. "Name the sum and if it's anything I can raise I'm satisfied.
And," his eyes steely, "_I'll_ name the sort of race!"

"Some one said that you were going to start things with a purse of five
hundred," remarked Hume. "I don't do business on that scale. I'll lay
you an even thousand."

"I'm pretty close up right now," was Shandon's a