“So they’ve been wondering when I am coming over,” he said reflectively.  “I don’t know that I’ll come at all.”  Deringham looked down at his cigar to cover his astonishment.  “But you are an Alton of Carnaby,” he said.

“Yes,” said Alton slowly.  “But that is one of the things I want to forget.  You see they drove my father out because he had the grit to marry the woman who loved him instead of another one who had the money, but you know all that?”

Deringham nodded, and Alton’s face showed grim in the moonlight as he continued:  “But what you don’t know is how he fought his way uphill in this country, and what my mother suffered helping him.  Oh, yes, I can remember her well, gentle, brave, and patient as she was, and know what it must have cost her to camp down alone in the bush, and fight through the hard winter in the ice and snow.  Well, she was too good for this world, and she just faded out of it before the good time came.  I think they must have a special place for women of her kind in the other one.”

Deringham only nodded again, because this type of man was new to him, and he had learned to keep silent when in doubt; but Alton’s big right hand closed into a fist.

“And now, when I have Somasco, the man who had not a dollar for his only son leaves me Carnaby,” he said.  “There.  Look out and see.  Timber, lake and clearing, cattle, mills, and crops, the finest ranch in the district.  My father commenced it, and I have finished.  The Almighty made him a man, and he wouldn’t sell his birthright to loaf his days away, overfed, at Carnaby.”

Alton dropped his cigar, and laughed a little.  “Well, I’m talking like a fool again.  There are times when I can’t help it.  It’s a way of mine.”

Deringham sat still smoking, and thinking rapidly.  He had never had dealings with a man of this description before, but while he surmised that Alton of Somasco might under some conditions prove himself a headstrong fool, it was evident that there were limits to his folly.  The man’s handiwork spoke for him, and his energy and intentness had not escaped Deringham’s attentions, while the occasional utterances that might have appeared bombastic coming from other men were redeemed in his case by the tone of naive sincerity and imperious ring.  Deringham was becoming conscious of a vague respect for and fear of his companion.

“We are apparently no nearer the answer to my question,” he said at length.

“No,” said Alton, smiling.  “This thing will take some thinking over.  Carnaby isn’t exactly what you call a rich property?”

“It is heavily encumbered,” said Deringham, almost too eagerly.

Alton nodded, “Still, it must be worth a little, and would give the folks who lived there a standing in the old country?”

“Yes,” said Deringham thoughtfully, and was once more astonished by his companion’s answer.

“Well,” he said slowly.  “I was thinking about your daughter.  All this, it seems to me, is mighty rough on her.  It would hurt her to be turned out of Carnaby?”