a
professing Christian.

"Circus rider!" he said to himself. "Wants taking down some, and he's
come to the right place to get it."

On his part, Orlando Guise showed his dislike of the repellent figure by
a brusque giggle, and further expressed what was in his mind by the one
word "Turk!"

His repugnance, however, was balanced by something possessing the old
man still more disagreeable. Like a malignant liquid, there crept up
through Joel Mazarine's body to the roots of his hair the ancient
virus of Cain. It was jealous, ravenous, grim: old age hating the rich,
robust, panting youth of the man be fore him. Was it that being half
man, half beast, he had some animal instinct concerning this young
rough-rider before him? Did he in some vague, prescient way associate
this gaudy newcomer with his girl-wife? He could not himself have said.
Primitive passions are corporate of many feelings but of little sight.

As Orlando Guise slid from his horse, Joel Mazarine steadied himself and
said: "Come about the cattle? Ready to buy and pay cash down?"

Orlando Guise giggled.

"What are you sniggering at?" snorted the old man.

"I thought it was understood that if I liked the bunch I was to pay
cash," Orlando replied. "I've got a good report of the beasts, but I
want to look them over. My head cattleman told you what I'd do. That's
why I smiled. Funny, too: you don't look like a man who'd talk more than
was wanted." He giggled again.

"Fool--I'll make you laugh on the other side of your mouth!" the Master
of Tralee said to himself; and then he motioned to where a bunch of a
hundred or so cattle were grazing in a little dip of the country between
them and Askatoon. "I'll get my buckboard. It's all hitched up and
ready, and we can get down and see them right now," he said aloud.
"Won't you find it rough going on the buckboard? Better ride," remarked
Orlando Guise.

"I don't ever notice rough going," grunted the old man. "Some people
ride horses to show themselves off; I ride a buckboard 'cause it suits
me."

Orlando Guise chirruped. "Say, we mustn't get scrapping," he said gaily.
"We've got to make a bargain."

In a few moments they were sweeping across the prairie, and sure enough
the buckboard bumped, tumbled and plunged into the holes of the gophers
and coyotes, but the old man sat the seat with the tenacity of a gorilla
clinging to the branch of a tree.

In about three-quarters of an hour the two returned to Tralee,