ue realisation of
what Smiler had done, he sprang on him, hugging him and god-blessing
him until Phil began to fear for the youngster's personal safety.

"Well," said Phil, picking up the ten dollars and handing them over to
Smiler, "I guess, Sol, you have found your man?"

"Found him! You bet your life, I got him. Yiminy crickets!--and I make
him one dam-fine fellow now, I tell you what. He my son now--my little
Smiler."

And Smiler smiled, as Phil hurried back to relieve Jim at the office.

When Phil got back there, he found Jim on tenterhooks of excitement
awaiting his arrival, for he had had a prospective buyer just off the
train, who wanted Jim to drive him out to inspect a few ranches in the
neighbourhood, immediately after he had a wash-up and some lunch at
the Kenora; and Jim had been fearing that Phil would not get back in
time.

"He's a farmer from the Prairies--so I mean to land him. They are the
kind that ha'e the bawbees!"

"Have the what?" asked Phil; for despite his long contact with Jim,
the latter was constantly springing a Scotticism on him that he had
not heard before.

"Bawbee, man!--sillar,--ha'pennies,--one cent pieces!"

"A fat lot of good one cent pieces will do when it comes to buying a
ranch in British Columbia."

Jim threw up his hands at Phil's apparent lack of wit, then he
laughed and rushed across the road for a bite of lunch at a small
restaurant.

He was back in a few minutes and before his prairie farmer returned.

Jim introduced the farmer to his partner as "Mr. Phil Ralston, one of
the most shrewd financial men in the West," loaded him up with cigars,
then got him into his Catteline-Harvard, drove him slowly past every
other real-estate office in town, then out into the country. He took
so long on that trip that Phil was on the point of closing up for the
day ere he returned.

He was bubbling over with excitement and perspiring freely. He clapped
Phil on the back, then sat down with a show of collapse.

"Come on! Tell me all about it, you clam."

"Great Scot!" said Jim, "and they say that it is a 'lotus eater's' job
selling real-estate. I've shown that hard-headed old son-of-a-gun nine
ranches this afternoon. I've talked climate, position, irrigation,
soil, seed and production for six solid hours. I would rather write a
'dime novel' every day in my life, than this." He mopped his brow. "It
is a great life if you stay with it!"

"Did you sell him?" asked the matter-o