“The fact is I’m awfully sorry,” he said.  “But how was I to know?”

The veins were swollen on Alton’s forehead, and his eyes half-closed.  “Now,” he said sternly, “I don’t want to hear any more of that.  I think I told you the lady you saw here came in a few minutes ago on an affair of business.”

It was unfortunate that Alton had a difficult temper and his visitor no discretion, for there are men in whom Western directness degenerates into effrontery.

“Of course!” said the latter.  “My dear fellow, you needn’t protest.  Considering the connection between her employers and Hallam, who is scarcely a friend of yours, that is especially likely.”

Alton stood very straight, looking at the speaker in a fashion which would have warned any one who knew him.  “I figure you can’t help being a fool, but I want to hear you admit that you’re sorry for it,” he said.

He spoke very quietly, but it was unfortunate for both of them that the other man, who was growing slightly nettled, did not know when to stop.

“I told you I was sorry—­I looked in at an inopportune time—­already, and I’ll forget it right off,” he said.  “Now that should content anybody, because there are folks who would think the story too good to be lost.”

He got no further, because Alton stepped forward and seized him by the collar, which tore away in his grasp.  Then there was a brief scuffle, a scattering of papers up and down the room, and Alton stood gasping in the doorway, while his visitor reeled down the first flight of stairs and into the wall at the foot of it.  Alton glanced down at him a moment, and seeing he was not seriously hurt, flung the door to with a bang that rolled from corridor to corridor through the great silent building, before he turned back into the disordered room with a little laugh.

“I’ve fixed that fellow, anyway, and now I’d better go through those plans until I simmer down,” he said.

He picked up the overturned table and his scattered supper, while it was characteristic of him that when an hour later he rolled up a sheet of mill-drawings in a survey plotting of the Somasco valley, he had forgotten all about the incident, which was, however, not the case with the other man.  In another twenty minutes he was also fast asleep, and because men commence their work betimes in that country, had disposed of several car-loads of Somasco produce before he breakfasted next morning.  During the day he noticed that some of the younger men he met smiled at him curiously, but attached no especial meaning to it.  Alton had taught himself to concentrate all his faculties upon his task, and he worked in the city as he had done in the bush, with the singleness of purpose and activity that left no opportunity of considering side issues.  He had also, as usual, a good deal to do:  buyers of dressed lumber, cattle, and ranching produce to interview; shippers of horses to bargain with:  railroad men and politicians to obtain promises of concessions from, and men who had money to lend to interest.  The latter was the most difficult task, and now and then his face grew momentarily grave as he remembered the burdens he had already laid upon his ranch and the Somasco Consolidated.