The Impostor

“Go on,” he said a trifle huskily. “To-night you can’t beat me!”

Once more he won, and just then two men came quietly into the room. One of them signed to the hotel-keeper.

“What’s going on? The boys seem kind of keen,” he said.

The other man laughed a little. “Ferris has struck a streak of luck, but I wouldn’t be very sorry if you got him away, Mr. Courthorne. He has had as much as he can carry already, and I don’t want anybody broke up in my house. The boys can look out for themselves, but the Silverdale kid has been losing a good deal lately, and he doesn’t know when to stop.”

Witham glanced at his companion, who nodded. “The young fool,” he said.

They crossed towards the table in time to see the lad take up his winnings again, and Witham laid his hand quietly upon his shoulder.

“Come along and have a drink while you give the rest a show,” he said. “You seem to have done tolerably well, and it’s usually wise to stop while the chances are going with you.”

The lad turned and stared at him with languid insolence in his half-closed eyes, and, though he came of a lineage that had been famous in the old country, there was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance. His mouth was loose, his face weak in spite of its inherited pride, and there was little need to tell either of the men, who noticed his nervous fingers and muddiness of skin, that he was one who in the strenuous early days would have worn the woolly crown.

“Were you addressing me?” he asked.

“I was,” said Witham quietly. “I was, in fact, inviting you to share our refreshment. You see we have just come in.”

“Then,” said the lad, “it was condemnable impertinence. Since you have taken this fellow up, couldn’t you teach him that it’s bad taste to thrust his company upon people who don’t want it, Dane?”

Witham said nothing, but drew Dane, who flushed a trifle, aside, and when they sat down the latter smiled dryly.

“You have taken on a big contract, Courthorne. How are you going to get the young ass out?” he said.

“Well,” said Witham, “it would gratify me to take him by the neck, but as I don’t know that it would please the Colonel if I made a public spectacle of one of his retainers, I fancy I’ll have to tackle the gambler. I don’t know him, but as he comes from across the frontier it’s more than likely he has heard of me. There are advantages in having a record like mine, you see.”

“It would, of course, be a kindness to the lad’s people – but the young fool is scarcely worth it, and it’s not your affair,” said Dane reflectively.

Witham guessed the drift of the speech, but he could respect a confidence, and laughed a little. “It’s not often I have done any one a good turn, and the novelty has its attractions.”

Dane did not appear contented with this explanation, but he asked nothing further, and the two sat watching the men about the table, who were evidently growing eager.

“That’s two hundred the kid has let go,” said somebody.

There was a murmur of excited voices, and one rose hoarse and a trifle shaky in the consonants above the rest.

“Show you how a gentleman can stand up, boys. Throw them out again. Two hundred this time on the game!”

There was silence and the rustle of shuffled cards; then once more the voices went up. “Against him! Better let up before he takes your farm. Oh, let him face it and show his grit – the man who slings round his hundreds can afford to lose!”

The lad’s face showed a trifle paler through the drifting smoke, though a good many of the cigars had gone out now, and once more there was the stillness of expectancy through which a strained voice rose.

“Going to get it all back. I’ll stake you four hundred.”

Witham rose and moved forward quietly, with Dane behind him, and then stood still where he could see the table. He had also very observant eyes, and was free from the excitement of those who had a risk on the game. Still, when the cards were dealt, it was the gambler’s face he watched. For a brief space nobody moved, and then the lad flung down his cards and stood up with a greyness in his cheeks and his hands shaking.

“You’ve got all my dollars now,” he said. “Still, I’ll play you for doubles if you’ll take my paper.”

The gambler nodded, and flung down a big pile of bills. “I guess I’ll trust you. Mine are here.”

The bystanders waited motionless, and none of them made a bet, for any stakes they could offer would be trifles now; but they glanced at the lad who stood tensely still, while Witham watched the face of the man at the table in front of him. For a moment he saw a flicker of triumph in his eyes, and that decided him. Again, one by one, the cards went down, and then, when everybody waited in strained expectancy, the lad seemed to grow limp suddenly and groaned.

“You can let up,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve gone down!”

Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest stared in astonishment, a voice which had a little stern ring in it said, “Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one.”

In an instant the gambler’s hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard, brown fingers closed upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw Witham leaning very grim in face across the table. Then it tilted over beneath him, and the cards were on the gambler’s knees, while, as the two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of one of them.

It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie. In any case, he had not the opportunity, for in another moment Witham’s right hand closed upon his wrist, and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to extricate it. He was a muscular man, with doubtless a sufficiency of nerve, but he had not toiled with his arms and led a Spartan life for eight long years. Before another few seconds had passed he was wondering whether he would ever use that wrist again, while Dane picked up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket with the bundle of bills Witham handed him.

“Now,” said the latter, “I want to do the square thing. If you’ll let us strip you and turn out your pockets, we’ll see you get any winnings you’re entitled to when we’ve straightened up the cards.”

The gambler was apparently not willing, for, though it is possible he would have found it advisable to play an honest game across the frontier, he had evidently surmised that there was less risk of detection among the Canadian farmers. He probably knew they would not wait long for his consent, but in the first stages of the altercation it is not as a rule insuperably difficult for a fearless man to hold his own against an indignant company who have no definite notion of what they mean to do, and it was to cover his retreat he turned to Witham.

“And who the – are you?” he asked.

Witham smiled grimly. “I guess you have heard of me. Anyway, there are a good many places in Montana where they know Lance Courthorne. Quite sure I know a straight game when I see it!”

The man’s resistance vanished, but he had evidently been taught the necessity of making the best of defeat in his profession, and he laughed as he swept his glance round at the angry faces turned upon him.

“If you don’t there’s nobody does,” he said. “Still, as you’ve got my pistol and ‘most dislocated my wrist, the least you can do is to get a partner out of this.”

There was an ominous murmur, and the lad’s face showed livid with fury and humiliation, but Witham turned quietly to the hotel-keeper.

“You will take this man with you into your side room and stop with him there,” he said. “Dane, give him the bills. The rest of you had better sit down here and make a list of your losses, and you’ll get whatever the fellow has upon him divided amongst you. Then, because I ask you, and you’d have had nothing but for me, you’ll put him in his wagon and turn him out quietly upon the prairie.”

“That’s sense, and we don’t want no circus here,” said somebody.

A few voices were raised in protest, but when it became evident that one or two of the company were inclined to adopt more draconic measures, Dane spoke quietly and forcibly, and was listened to. Then Witham reached out and grasped the shoulder of the English lad, who made the last attempt to rouse his companions.

“Let them alone, Ferris, and come along. You’ll get most of what you lost back to-morrow, and we’re going to take you home,” he said.

Ferris turned upon him, hoarse with passion, flushed in face, and swaying a trifle on his feet, while Witham noticed that he drew one arm back.

“Who are you to lay hands on a gentleman?” he asked. “Keep your distance. I’m going to stay here, and, if I’d have had my way, we’d have kicked you out of Silverdale.”

Witham dropped his hand, but next moment the ornament of a distinguished family was seized by the neck, and the farmer glanced at Dane.

“We’ve had enough of this fooling, and he’ll be grateful to me to-morrow,” he said.

Then his captive was thrust, resisting strenuously, out of the room, and with Dane’s assistance conveyed to the waiting wagon, into which he was flung, almost speechless with indignation.

“Now,” said Dane quietly, “you’ve given us a good deal more trouble than you’re worth, Ferris, and if you attempt to get out again, I’ll break your head for you. Tell Courthorne how much that fellow got from you.”

In another ten minutes they had jolted across the railroad track, and were speeding through the silence of the lonely prairie. Above them the clear stars flung their cold radiance down through vast distances of liquid indigo, and the soft beat of hoofs was the only sound that disturbed the solemn stillness of the wilderness. Dane drew in a great breath of the cool night air and laughed quietly.

“It’s a good deal more wholesome here in several ways,” said he. “If you’re wise, you’ll let up on card-playing and hanging round the settlement, Ferris, and stick to farming. Even if you lose almost as many dollars over it, it will pay you considerably better. Now that’s all I’m going to tell you, but I know what I’m speaking of, because I’ve had my fling – and it’s costing me more than I care to figure out still. You, however, can pull up, because by this time you have no doubt found out a good deal, if you’re not all a fool. Curiosity’s at the bottom of half our youthful follies, isn’t it, Courthorne? We want to know what the things forbidden actually taste like.”

“Well,” said Witham dryly, “I don’t quite know. You see, I had very little money in the old country, and still less leisure here to spend either on that kind of experimenting. Where to get enough to eat was the one problem that worried me.”

Dane turned a trifle sharply. “We are, I fancy, tolerably good friends. Isn’t it a little unnecessary for you to adopt that tone with me?”

Witham laughed, but made no answer, and their companion said nothing at all. Either the night wind had a drowsy effect on him or he was moodily resentful, for it was not until Witham pulled up before the homestead whose lands he farmed indifferently under Barrington’s supervision that he opened his mouth.

“You have got off very cheaply to-night, and if you’re wise you’ll let that kind of thing alone in future,” said Witham quietly.

The lad stepped down from the wagon and then stood still. “I resent advice from you as much as I do your uncalled-for insolence an hour or two ago,” he said. “To lie low until honest men got used to him would be considerably more becoming to a man like you.”

“Well,” said Witham, stung into forgetfulness, “I’m not going to offend in that fashion again, and you can go to the devil in the way that most pleases you. In fact, I only pulled you out of the pit to-night because a lady, who apparently takes a quite unwarranted interest in you, asked me to.”

Ferris stared up at him, and his face showed almost livid through the luminous night.

“She asked you to!” he said. “By the Lord, I’ll make you sorry for this.”

Witham said nothing, but shook the reins, and when the wagon lurched forward Dane looked at him.

“I didn’t know that before,” he said.

“Well,” said Witham dryly, “if I hadn’t lost my temper with the lad you wouldn’t have done now.”

Dane smiled. “You miss the point of it. Our engaging friend made himself the laughing-stock of the colony by favouring Maud Barrington with his attentions when he came out. In fact, I fancy the lady, in desperation, had to turn her uncle loose on him before he could be made to understand that they were not appreciated. I’d keep your eye on him, Courthorne, for the little beast has shown himself abominably vindictive occasionally, though I have a notion he’s scarcely to be held accountable. It’s a case of too pure a strain and consanguinity. Two branches of the family – marriage between land and money, you see.”

“It will be my heel if he gets in my way,” said Witham grimly.

It was late when they reached his homestead where Dane was to stay the night, and when they went in a youthful figure in uniform rose up in the big log-walled hall. For a moment Witham’s heart almost stood still, and then, holding himself in hand by a strenuous effort, he moved forward and stood where the light of a lamp did not shine quite fully upon him. He knew that uniform, and he had also seen the lad who wore it once or twice before, at an outpost six hundred miles away across the prairie. He knew the risk he took was great, but it was evident to him that if his identity escaped detection at first sight, use would do the rest, and while he had worn a short pointed beard on the Western prairie, he was cleanly-shaven now.

The lad stood quite still a moment staring at him, and Witham returning his gaze steadily felt his pulses throb.

“Well, trooper, what has brought you here?” he said.

“Homestead visitation, sir,” said the lad, who had a pleasant English voice. “Mr. Courthorne, I presume – accept my regrets if I stared too hard at you – but for a moment you reminded me of a man I knew. They’ve changed us round lately, and I’m from the Alberta Squadron just sent in to this district. It was late when I rode in, and your people were kind enough to put me up.”

Witham laughed. “I have been taken for another man before. Would you like anything to drink, or a smoke before you turn in, trooper?”

“No, sir,” said the lad. “If you’ll sign my docket to show I’ve been here, I’ll get some sleep. I’ve sixty miles to ride to-morrow.”

Witham did as he was asked, and the trooper withdrew, while when they sat down to a last cigar it seemed to Dane that his companion’s face was graver than usual.

“Did you notice the lad’s astonishment when you came in?” he asked. “He looked very much as if he had seen a ghost.”

Witham smiled. “I believe he fancied he had. There was a man in the district he came from whom some folks considered resembled me. In reality, I was by no means like him, and he’s dead now.”

“Likenesses are curious things, and it’s stranger still how folks alter,” said Dane. “Now, they’ve a photograph at Barrington’s of you as a boy, and while there is a resemblance in the face, nobody with any discernment would have fancied that lad would grow into a man like you. Still, that’s of no great moment, and I want to know just how you spotted the gambler. I had a tolerably expensive tuition in most games of chance in my callow days, and haven’t forgotten completely what I was taught then, but though I watched the game I saw nothing that led me to suspect crooked play.”

Witham laughed. “I watched his face, and what I saw there decided me to try a bluff, but it was not until he turned the table over I knew I was right.”

“Well,” said Dane dryly, “you don’t need your nerves toning up. With only a suspicion to go upon, it was a tolerably risky game. Still, of course, you had advantages.”

“I have played a more risky one, but I don’t know that I have cause to be very grateful for anything I acquired in the past,” said Witham with a curious smile.

Dane stood up and flung his cigar away. “It’s time I was asleep,” he said. “Still, since our talk has turned in this direction, I want to tell you that, as you have doubtless seen, there is something about you that puzzles me occasionally. I don’t ask your confidence until you are ready to give it me – but if ever you want anybody to stand behind you in a difficulty, you’ll find me rather more than willing.”

He went out, and Witham sat still very grave in face for at least another hour.

CHAPTER XIII – A FAIR ADVOCATE

Thanks to the fashion in which the hotel-keeper managed the affair, the gambler left the settlement without personal injury, but very little richer than when he entered it. The rest of those who were present at his meeting with Witham were also not desirous that their friends should know they had been victimized, and because Dane was discreet, news of what had happened might never have reached Silverdale, had not one of the younger men ridden in to the railroad a few days later. Odd scraps of conversation overheard led him to suspect that something unusual had taken place, but as nobody seemed willing to supply details, he returned to Silverdale with his curiosity unsatisfied. As it happened, he was shortly afterwards present at a gathering of his neighbours at Macdonald’s farm and came across Ferris there.

“I heard fragments of a curious story at the settlement,” he said. “There was trouble of some kind in which a professional gambler figured last Saturday night, and though nobody seemed to want to talk about it, I surmised that somebody from Silverdale was concerned in it.”

He had perhaps spoken a trifle more loudly than he had intended, and there were a good many of the Silverdale farmers with a few of their wives and daughters whose attention was not wholly confined to the efforts of Mrs. Macdonald at the piano in the long room just then. In any case a voice broke through the silence that followed the final chords.

“Ferris could tell us if he liked. He was there that night.”

Ferris, who had cause for doing so, looked uncomfortable, and endeavoured to sign to the first speaker that it was not desirable to pursue the topic.

“I have been in tolerably often of late. Had things to attend to,” he said.

The other man was, however, possessed by a mischievous spirit, or did not understand him. “You may just as well tell us now as later, because you never kept a secret in your life,” he said.

In the meantime, several of the others had gathered about them, and Mrs. Macdonald, who had joined the group, smiled as she said, “There is evidently something interesting going on. Mayn’t I know, Gordon?”

“Of course,” said the man, who had visited the settlement. “You shall know as much as I do, though that is little, and if it excites your curiosity you can ask Ferris for the rest. He is only anxious to enhance the value of his story by being mysterious. Well, there was a more or less dramatic happening, of the kind our friends in the old country unwarrantably fancy is typical of the West, in the saloon at the settlement not long ago. Cards, pistols, a professional gambler, and the unmasking of foul play, don’t you know. Somebody from Silverdale played the leading rôle.”

“How interesting!” said a young English girl. “Now, I used to fancy something of that kind happened here every day before I came out to the prairie. Please tell us, Mr. Ferris! One would like to find there was just a trace of reality in our picturesque fancies of debonair desperadoes and big-hatted cavaliers.”

There was a curious expression in Ferris’ face, but as he glanced round at the rest, who were regarding him expectantly, he did not observe that Maud Barrington and her aunt had just come in and stood close behind him.

“Can’t you see there’s no getting out of it, Ferris?” said somebody.

“Well,” said the lad in desperation, “I can only admit that Gordon is right. There was foul play and a pistol drawn, but I’m sorry that I can’t add anything further. In fact, it wouldn’t be quite fair of me.”

“But the man from Silverdale?” asked Mrs. Macdonald.

“I’m afraid,” said Ferris, with the air of one shielding a friend, “I can’t tell you anything about him.”

“I know Mr. Courthorne drove in that night,” said the young English girl, who was not endued with very much discretion.

“Courthorne!” said one of the bystanders, and there was a momentary silence that was very expressive. “Was he concerned in what took place, Ferris?”

“Yes,” said the lad with apparent reluctance. “Mrs. Macdonald, you will remember that they dragged it out of me, but I will tell you nothing more whatever.”

“It seems to me you have told us quite sufficient and perhaps a trifle too much,” said somebody.

There was a curious silence. All of those present were more or less acquainted with Courthorne’s past history, and the suggestion of foul play coupled with the mention of a professional gambler had been significant. Ferris, while committing himself in no way, had certainly said sufficient. Then there was a sudden turning of heads as a young woman moved quietly into the midst of the group. She was ominously calm, but she stood very straight, and there was a little hard glitter in her eyes, which reminded one or two of them who noticed it of those of Colonel Barrington. The fingers of one hand were also closed at her side.

“I overheard you telling a story, Ferris, but you have a bad memory and left rather too much out,” she said.

“They compelled me to tell them what I did, Miss Barrington,” said the lad, who winced beneath her gaze. “Now, there is really nothing to be gained by going any further into the affair. Shall I play something for you, Mrs. Macdonald?”

He turned as he spoke, and would have edged away but that one of the men, at a glance from the girl, laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t be in a hurry, Ferris. I fancy Miss Barrington has something more to tell you,” he said dryly.

The girl thanked him with a gesture. “I want you to supply the most important part,” she said, and the lad, saying nothing, changed colour under the glance she cast upon him. “You do not seem willing. Then perhaps I had better do it for you. There were two men from Silverdale directly concerned in the affair, and one of them at no slight risk to himself did a very generous thing. That one was Mr. Courthorne. Did you see him lay a single stake upon a card, or do anything that led you to suppose he was there for the purpose of gambling that evening?”

“No,” said the lad, seeing she knew the truth, and his hoarse voice was scarcely audible.

“Then,” said Maud Barrington, “I want you to tell us what you did see him do.”

Ferris said nothing, and though the girl laughed a little as she glanced at the wondering group, her voice was icily disdainful.

“Well,” she said, “I will tell you. You saw him question a professional gambler’s play to save a man who had no claim on him from ruin, and, with only one comrade to back him, drive the swindler, who had a pistol, from the field. He had, you admit, no interest of any kind in the game?”

Ferris had grown crimson again, and the veins on his forehead showed swollen high. “No,” he said, almost abjectly.

Maud Barrington turned from him to her hostess as she answered, “That will suffice, in the meanwhile, until I can decide whether it is desirable to make known the rest of the tale. I brought the new song Evelyn wanted, Mrs. Macdonald, and I will play it for her if she would care to try it.”

She moved away with the elder lady, and left the rest astonished to wonder what had become of Ferris, who was seen no more that evening, while presently Witham came in.

His face was a trifle weary, for he had toiled since the sun rose above the rim of the prairie, and when the arduous day was over, and those who worked for him were glad to rest their aching limbs, had driven two leagues to Macdonald’s. Why he had done so he was not willing to admit, but he glanced round the long room anxiously as he came in, and his eyes brightened as they rested on Maud Barrington. They were, however, observant eyes, and he noticed that there was a trifle more colour than usual in the girl’s pale-tinted face, and signs of suppressed curiosity about some of the rest. When he had greeted his hostess, he turned to one of the men.