erect before him.

"Well," he said, with quick, business conciseness, "what do you want?"

Ezekiel was staggered out of his complacency.

"Wa'al," he stammered, "I only reckoned to ask the news, ez we are old
friends--I--"

"How much do you want?" repeated Blandford, impatiently.

Ezekiel was mystified, yet expectant. "I can't say ez I exakly
understand," he began.

"How--much--money--do--you--want," continued Blandford, with frigid
accuracy, "to get up and get out of this place?"

"Wa'al, consideren ez I'm travellin' here ez the only authorized agent
of a first-class Frisco Drug House," said Ezekiel, with a mingling of
mortification, pride, and hopefulness, "unless you're travellin' in the
opposition business, I don't see what's that to you."

Blandford regarded him searchingly for an instant. "Who sent you here?"

"Dilworth & Dusenberry, Battery Street, San Francisco. Hev their card?"
said Ezekiel, taking one from his waistcoat pocket.

"Corwin," said Blandford, sternly, "whatever your business is here
you'll find it will pay you better, a ---- sight, to be frank with
me and stop this Yankee shuffling. You say you have been with
Demorest--what has HE got to do with your business here?"

"Nothin'," said Ezekiel. "I reckon he wos ez astonished to see me ez you
are."

"And didn't he send you here to seek me?" said Blandford, impatiently.

"Considerin' he believes you a dead man, I reckon not."

Blandford gave a hard, constrained laugh. After a pause, still keeping
his eyes fixed on Ezekiel, he said:

"Then your recognition of me was accidental?"

"Wa'al, yes. And ez I never took much stock in the stories that you were
washed off the Warensboro Bridge, I ain't much astonished at finding you
agin."

"What did you believe happened to me?" said Blandford, less brusquely.

Ezekiel noticed the softening; he felt his own turn coming. "I
kalkilated you had reasons for going off, leaving no address behind
you," he drawled.

"What reasons?" asked Blandford, with a sudden relapse of his former
harshness.

"Wa'al, Squire Blandford, sens you wanter know--I reckon your business
wasn't payin', and there was a matter of two hundred and fifty dollars
ye took with ye, that your creditors would hev liked to hev back."

"Who dare say that?" demanded Blandford, angrily.

"Your wife that was--Mrs. Demorest ez is--told it to her mother,"
returned Ezekiel, lazily.

The blow struck deeper than even Ezekiel's dry mal