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"I remember when my father took me to Monte Carlo I saw you at the tables with enough money in front of you to start a bank. I remember my father asked the croupiers why they allowed a child of your age to gamble. I was just a kid then, and so were you, too. I remember I thought you were the devil of a fellow." Ranson looked sheepishly at Miss Cahill and laughed. "Well, so I was- -then," he said.
They'll witness it." Miss Cahill, from the other end of the veranda, and the visitors entered the room together. "Mrs. Truesdale!" cried Ranson. "You are pouring coals of fire upon my head. And Miss Post! Indeed, this is too much honor. After the way I threatened and tried to frighten you last night I expected you to hang me, at least, instead of which you have, I trust, come to tea."
The old negro preacher rose, too, a little behind Jim Pink. "Now, boys! boys!" he placated. "You jes think dat, Persimmon." "Yeah," admitted Persimmon, "I jes think it; but ef I b'lieve ever'thing is so whut I think is so, I'd part Jim Pink's wool wid a brickbat." Parson Ranson tried to make peace, but the Persimmon spread his hands in a gesture that included the three men.
While he was thus engaged he heard a kind of tumult outside, in which he recognised the treble of the oily-headed clerk coming in a bad second to a deep, bass voice. Then the door opened and a big, burly man, with a red face and a jovial, rolling eye, appeared with startling suddenness and ejaculated: "Damn Ranson, damn Richards, or damn them both, with the Son thrown in!
"I assure you," said Mrs. Bolland to the colonel, "if it hadn't been for young Ranson we would have been burned in our beds; but he was most aggravating. He treated it as though it were Fourth of July fireworks. It is the only entertainment we have been able to offer him since he joined in which he has shown the slightest interest."
Yes, Paris is safe enough and so amusing." Cahill seated himself heavily. "I trapped you into this fix, Mr. Ranson," he said, "you know I did, and now I mean to get you out of it. I ain't going to leave the man my Mame wants to marry with a cloud on him. I ain't going to let her husband be jailed." Ranson had run to his desk and from a drawer drew forth a roll of bills.
Ranson looked up interrogatively and smiled. "You mean you think I did it myself?" he asked. "I didn't understand from Captain Carr," the post trader began in heavy tones, "that it's my opinion you're after. He said I might be wanted to testify who was present last night in my store." "Certainly, that's all we want," Ranson answered, genially.
Major Stickney and others who were playing bridge were considerably annoyed. Ranson then demanded that everyone present should drink his health in champagne for the reason that it was his birthday and that he was glad he was alive, and wished everyone else to feel the same way about it. "Or, for any other reason why," he added generously.
"Here's the Scotch and sodas, lieutenant," he panted. "I couldn't get 'em any sooner. The men wanted to take 'em off me to drink Miss Cahill's health." "So they shall," said Ranson. "Tell them to drink the canteen dry and charge it to me. What's a little thing like the regulations between friends? They have taught me my manners. Mr. Cahill," he called. The post-trader returned from the veranda.
"But when I did start I began with the ponchos and the red kerchiefs, and then I found out something." Cahill was regarding his daughter in strange distress, but Ranson appeared indifferent to her words, and intent only on the light and beauty in her face. But he asked, smiling, "And that was?"
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