have a little;--a very little,--enough for a few days. I'm up here
to find work."

"Well,--come along with me for the time being," said Langford.

"All right!" assented Phil. And the two walked up Main Street
together, up toward the railway tracks, past the barn Phil had hidden
in on his first, unofficial visit to Vernock.

"How,--how did you manage to beat off those cowpunchers?" asked Phil.

"Easy as breathing! I once punched the heart out of that rotter
McGregor. Beat a man once, good and plenty, and it isn't hard beating
him again. And that doesn't only refer to fighting, either. But say!
if I didn't know you were a stranger hereabout, I would have said Rob
Roy's picking on you was a put up job."

A pang shot through Phil at the suggestion, and it set him wondering.

"First thing you've got to do, young fellow, is to get up your
strength and go back and lick the stuffing out of that scum. If you
don't, your life won't be worth living in Vernock."

Phil laughed.

"That's straight goods!" returned Langford, his Scottish burr turning
the Western phrase strangely.

"Well--I don't mind if I do," said Phil.

They called in at the railway depot, and Phil got his two grips.

"Ralston!--what kind of business do you follow? Hope you aren't a
pen-pusher, because pen-pushing isn't for you for some time to come.
What you need is something out in the open. You seem to have played
merry hell with your constitution. I'm skin and bone myself, but I'm
not the fattening kind. I'm built for speed. Now your frame's made for
muscle and flesh, and you haven't a pick of meat on your entire
carcass."

Phil smiled in an embarrassed kind of way.

"Don't mind me," continued Langford. "You'll get on to my way after a
bit. What's your line of trade?"

"Well, to be honest," said Phil, "I haven't any. I came out here to
try anything. I'm an M.A. of Toronto University; have substituted in
school; can clear land if I get my own time to it; have a pretty fair
knowledge of accounting; but haven't done much of anything so far. I
used to be a good athlete."

It was Langford's turn to smile.

"Another poor, hand-fed chicken out of the University incubator, who
can do everything but what he is meant to do--lay eggs, golden ones.
Say, Ralston, the world is full of us and we're little or no damned
good. We know too much, or think we do, to be contented with the pick
and shovel game, and we don't know enough--because we think we know it