The barrister stooped and began to fumble with his bag.
'No, not that!' cried Tim, with some impatience. 'Tell me in your own words.'
The lawyer sat back and pressed his finger points together over his stomach.
'The late Viscount,' said he, 'has been graciously pleased to leave you in fee simple his entire estate of Staghurst, together with its buildings, rentals, and privileges. This, besides the residential rights, amounts to some ten thousands pounds sterling per annum.'
'A little less than fifty thousand dollars a year, Harry,' Tim shot over his shoulder at me.
'There is one condition,' put in the lawyer.
'Oh, there is!' exclaimed Tim, his crest falling. 'Well, knowing my Uncle Hillary - '
'The condition is not extravagant,' the lawyer hastily interposed. 'It merely entails continued residence in England, and a minimum of nine months on the estate. This provision is absolute, and the estate reverts in its discontinuance, but may I be permitted to observe that the majority of men, myself among the number, are content to spend the most of their lives, not merely in the confines of a kingdom, but between the four walls of a room, for much less than ten thousand pounds a year. Also that England is not without its attractions for an Englishman, and that Staghurst is a country place of many possibilities.'
The Honourable Timothy had recovered from his first surprise.
'And if the conditions are not complied with?' he inquired.
'Then the estate reverts to the heirs at law, and you receive an annuity of one hundred pounds, payable quarterly.'
'May I ask further the reason for this extraordinary condition?'
'My distinguished client never informed me,' replied the lawyer, 'but' - and a twinkle appeared in his eye - 'as an occasional disburser of funds - Monte Carlo - '
Tim burst out laughing.
'Oh, but I recognise Uncle Hillary there!' he cried. 'Well, Mr. Case, I am sure Mr. Johnson, the owner of this ranch, can put you up, and to-morrow we'll start back.'
He returned after a few minutes to find me sitting' smoking a moody pipe. I liked Tim, and I was sorry to have him go. Then, too, I was ruffled, in the senseless manner of youth, by the sudden altitude to which his changed fortunes had lifted him. He stood in the middle of the room, surveying me, then came across and laid his arm on my shoulder.
'Well,' I growled, without looking up, 'you're a very rich man now, Mr. Clare.'
At that he jerked me bodily out of my seat and stood me up in the centre of the room, the Irish blazing out of his eyes.
'Here, none of that!' he snapped. 'You damn little fool! Don't you 'Mr. Clare' me!'
So in five minutes we were talking it over. Tim was very much excited at the prospect. He knew Staghurst well, and told me all about the big stone house, and the avenue through the trees; and the hedge-row roads, and the lawn with its peacocks, and the round green hills, and the labourers' cottages.
'It's home,' said he, 'and I didn't realise before how much I wanted to see it. And I'll be a man of weight there, Harry, and it'll be mighty good.'
We made all sorts of plans as to how I was going to visit him just as soon as I could get together the money for the passage. He had the delicacy not to offer to let me have it; and that clinched my trust and love of him.
The next day he drove away with Tony and the dapper little lawyer. I am not ashamed to say that I watched the buckboard until it disappeared in the mirage.
I was with Buck Johnson all that summer, and the following winter, as well. We had our first round-up, found the natural increase much in excess of the loss by Indians, and extended our holdings up over the Rock Creek country. We witnessed the start of many Indian campaigns, participated in a few little brushes with the Chiricahuas, saw the beginning of the cattle-rustling. A man had not much opportunity to think of anything but what he had right on hand, but I found time for a few speculations on Tim. I wondered how he looked now, and what he was doing, and how in blazes he managed to get away with fifty thousand a year.
And then one Sunday in June, while I was lying on my bunk, Tim pushed open the door and walked in. I was young, but I'd seen a lot, and I knew the expression of his face. So I laid low and said nothing.
In a minute the door opened again, and Buck Johnson himself came in.
'How do,' said he; 'I saw you ride up.'
'How do you do,' replied Tim.
'I know all about you,' said Buck, without any preliminaries; 'your man, Case, has wrote me. I don't know your reasons, and I don't want to know - it's none of my business - and I ain't goin' to tell you just what kind of a damn fool I think you are - that's none of my business, either. But I want you to understand without question how you stand on the ranch.'
'Quite good, sir,' said Tim very quietly.
'When you were out here before I was glad to have you here as a sort of guest. Then you were what I've heerd called a gentleman of leisure. Now you're nothin' but a remittance man. Your money's nothin' to me, but the principle of the thing is. The country is plumb pestered with remittance men, doin' nothin', and I don't aim to run no home for incompetents. I had a son of a duke drivin' wagon for me; and he couldn't drive nails in a snowbanks. So don't you herd up with the idea that you can come on this ranch and loaf.'
'I don't want to loaf,' put in Tim, 'I want a job.'
'I'm willing to give you a job,' replied Buck, 'but it's jest an ordinary cow-puncher's job at forty a month. And if you don't fill your saddle, it goes to someone else.'
'That's satisfactory,' agreed Tim.
'All right,' finished Buck, 'so that's understood. Your friend Case wanted me to give you a lot of advice. A man generally has about as much use for advice as a cow has for four hind legs.'
He went out.
'For God's sake, what's up?' I cried, leaping from my bunk.
'Hullo, Harry,' said he, as though he had seen me the day before, 'I've come back.'
'How come back?' I asked. 'I thought you couldn't leave the estate. Have they broken the will?'
'No,' said he.
'Is the money lost?' 'No.'
'Then what?'
'The long and short of it is, that I couldn't afford that estate and that money.'
'What do you mean?'
'I've given it up.'
'Given it up! What for?'
'To come back here.'
I took this all in slowly.
'Tim Clare,' said I at last, 'do you mean to say that you have given up an English estate and fifty thousand dollars a year to be a remittance man at five hundred, and a cow-puncher on as much more?'
'Exactly,' said he.
'Tim,' I adjured him solemnly, 'you are a damn fool!'
'Maybe,' he agreed.
'Why did you do it?' I begged.
He walked to the door and looked out across the desert to where the mountains hovered like soap-bubbles on the horizon. For a long time he looked; then whirled on me.
'Harry,' said he in a low voice, 'do you remember the camp we made on the shoulder of the mountain that night we were caught out? And do you remember how the dawn came up on the big snow peaks across the way - and all the canon below us filled with whirling mists - and the steel stars leaving us one by one? Where could I find room for that in English paddocks? And do you recall the day we trailed across the Yuma deserts, and the sun beat into our skulls, and the dry, brittle hills looked like papier-mache, and the grey sage-bush ran off into the rise of the hills; and then came sunset and the hard, dry mountains grew filmy, like gauze veils of many colours, and melted and glowed and faded to slate blue, and the stars came out? The English hills are rounded and green and curried, and the sky is near, and the stars only a few miles up. And do you recollect that dark night when old Loco and his
