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It had seemed the least bit encouraging, and he meditated anew on the only twenty minutes of real pleasurable excitement he had ever felt in his life, the twenty minutes with Dicksie Dunning at Smoky Creek. Her intimates, he had heard, called her Dicksie, and he was vaguely envying her intimates when the night despatcher, Rooney Lee, opened the door and disturbed his reflections.
A year before Master Dunning and his daughter left England, he had come to the town of Exeter, near to which the Dunnings lived on their estate, and opened a studio as a landscape painter.
She was delicate, but, if those in Medicine Bend who remembered her said true, a lovely creature. Remaining in the mountains was the last thing Betty had ever thought of, but no one, man or woman, could withstand Dick Dunning. She fell quite in love with him the first time she set eyes on him in Medicine Bend, for he was very handsome in the saddle, and Betty was fairly wild about horses.
"Yes, and live on the interest," added Aunt Jane. "Or invest in the whale-fishery," said Captain Dunning, emitting a voluminous cloud of tobacco-smoke, as if to suggest the idea that the investment would probably end in something similar to that. "Oh! I'll tell you what to do, Glynn," cried Ailie, clapping her hands; "it would be so nice.
"I'll give you a chance to even up with me. I'll bet you twenty that Harvard doesn't score." "Oh, well, I'll have to stand you, just for fun," murmured Harris as he extracted a twenty-dollar bill from the roll it was said he always carried and handed it to Deacon Dunning. "Shove up your dough, Rattle." Harry covered the money promptly, and then he laughed.
He has had losses in his business, such as are too heavy for his stock to support; he has, perhaps, launched out in trade beyond his reach: either he has so many bad debts, that he cannot find by his books he has enough left to pay his creditors, or his debts lie out of his reach, and he cannot get them in, which in one respect is as bad; he has more bills running against him than he knows how to pay, and creditors dunning him, whom it is hard for him to comply with; and this, by degrees, sinks his credit.
A worse dun, a dun with less power of dunning, than Ontario Moggs could not be conceived. His only strength lay in his helplessness. When he found that Mr. Newton had two friends with him, his lips were sealed. To ask for money at all was very painful to him, but to ask for it before three men was beyond his power.
"Give way, my lads," whispered Captain Dunning eagerly, as he watched the other boats; "we shall be first we shall be first; only bend your backs." The men needed not to be urged; they were quite as anxious as their commander to win the races and bent their backs, as he expressed it, until the oars seemed about to break. Glynn sat on the after thwart, and did good service on this occasion.
For answer Dunning led McCloud off toward the Bend, and Dicksie was left alone with Whispering Smith. He made a seat for her on the windward side of the big fire. When she had seated herself she looked up in great contentment to ask if he was not going to sit down beside her. The brown coat, the high black hat, and the big eyes of Whispering Smith had already become a part of her mental store.
"Well, now, look here, Johnston, don't think I am dunning you, don't think I am afraid of you," he hurriedly explained. "Oh, no," said I. "I understand that, landlord, but I'll tell you how it is; you see " "Don't think I am dunning you, Johnston, don't think that, for I'll hand it right back to you in a day or two," he again assured me. "That's all right," I said, "that's all right.
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