CHAPTER XV

“You’ve got Stan sized up all wrong, Mr. McClintock,” said Pete.  “That boy didn’t want your money.  He never so much as mentioned your name to me.  If he had, I would have known why Old Man Trouble was haunting him so persistent.  And he don’t want anybody’s money.  He’s got a-plenty of his own—­in prospect.  And he’s got what’s better than money:  he has learned to do without what he hasn’t got.”

“You say he has proved himself a good man of his hands?” demanded McClintock sharply.

“Yessir—­Stanley is sure one double-fisted citizen,” said Pete.  “Here is what I heard spoken of him by highest authority the day before I left:  ‘He’ll make a hand!’ That was the word said of Stan to me.  We don’t get any higher than that in Arizona.  When you say of a man, ’He’ll do to take along,’ you’ve said it all.  And Stanley Mitchell will do to take along.  I’m thinkin’, sir, that you did him no such an ill turn when your quarrel sent him out there.  He was maybe the least bit inclined to be butter-flighty when he first landed.”

It was a queer gathering.  McClintock sat in his great wheeled chair, leaning against the cushions; he held a silken skull-cap in his hand, revealing a shining poll with a few silvered locks at side and back; his little red ferret eyes, fiery still, for all the burden of his years, looked piercingly out under shaggy brows.  His attendant, withered and brown and gaunt, stood silent behind him.  Mary Selden, quiet and pale, was at the old man’s left hand.  Pete Johnson, with one puffed and discolored eye, a bruised cheek, and with skinned and bandaged knuckles, but cheerful and sunny of demeanor, sat facing McClintock.  Boland and Sedgwick sat a little to one side.  They had tried to withdraw, on the plea of intrusion; but McClintock had overruled them and bade them stay.

“For the few high words that passed atween us, I care not a boddle—­though, for the cause of them I take shame to myself,” said McClintock, glancing down affectionately at Mary Selden.  “I was the more misled—­at the contrivance of yon fleechin’ scoundrel of an Oscar.  ’I’m off to Arizona, to win the boy free,’ says he—­the leein’ cur!...  I will say this thing, too, that my heart warmed to the lad at the very time of it—­that he had spunk to speak his mind.  I have seen too much of the supple stock.  Sirs, it is but an ill thing to be over-rich, in which estate mankind is seen at the worst.  The fawning sort cringe underfoot for favors, and the true breed of kindly folk are all o’erapt to pass the rich man by, verra scornful-like.”  He looked hard at Peter Johnson.  “I am naming no names,” he added.

“As for my gear, it would be a queer thing if I could not do what I like with my own.  Even a gay young birkie like yoursel’ should understand that, Mr. Johnson.  Besides, we talk of what is by.  The lawyer has been; Van Lear has given him instructions, and the pack of you shall witness my hand to the bit paper that does Stan right, or ever you leave this room.”