ions of meeting
Harris on this occasion, and, if the truth be told, he had little
desire to meet him. Riles had no pangs of conscience over his part in
the plot against his old neighbour, but he had an uneasy feeling of
cowardice. When suddenly his eye fell on Harris and his big,
strapping son, his first impulse was to slip away in the crowd before
they should notice him. But it was only for a moment; the next,
Harris was calling, "'Lo, Hiram," and the two were shaking hands as
old friends met in a far country.

"Didja get my letter?" asked Riles, ignoring the commonplaces with
which it was their custom to introduce any important topic. "Didja
sell the farm?"

"I got the letter, Hiram, but I didn't sell the farm. Thought we'd
just have a look over this coal mine before goin' into the business
altogether."

"H-s-h. Throttle your voice down. This place is full of men on the
look-out for somethin' like that, an' you can't keep it too dark
until it's all settled."

"Well, ain't we going to put up somewhere?" said Allan, breaking the
silence that followed Riles' warning. "There ought to be an Alberta
hotel here, somewhere. I saw one in every town for the last two
hundred miles."

"I got that beat," said Riles, with a snicker. "Boardin' on a lord,
or duke, or somethin'."

"Don't say?"

"Yeh. You mind Gard'ner? Him 'at lit out from Plainville after that
stealin' affair?"

"The one you got credit for bein' mixed up in?" said Allan, with
disconcerting frankness. "A lame kind of a lord he'd make. What about
him?"

"Well, he struck a soft thing out here, fo' sure. This lord I'm
tellin' you about's gone off home over some bloomin' estate or other,
an' Gard'ner's runnin' his ranch--his 'bloody-well rawnch' he calls
it. Gets a good fat wad for ridin' round, an' hires a man to do the
work. But it was Gard'ner put me on t' this coal mine deal."

"Let's get settled first, and we'll talk about Gardiner and the mine
afterwards," said Harris, and they joined the throng that was now
wending its way to the hotels.

"How's your thirst, Hiram?" inquired Harris, after he had registered.

"Pretty sticky," confessed Riles. "But they soak you a quarter to
wash it out here."

"Well, I got a quarter."

"A quarter apiece, I mean."

"Well, I got a quarter apiece," said Harris. "Come on."

Riles followed, astonishment over Harris's sudden liberality, and
misgiving as to how he himself could avoid a similar expenditure,
struggli