“That,” said Winston, “is beside the question.  What do you want of me?  Money in all probability.  Well, you will not get it.”

“I’m afraid I’m scarcely fit for a discussion now,” said Courthorne.  “The fact is, it hurts me to talk, and there’s an aggressiveness about you which isn’t pleasant to a badly-shaken man.  Wait until this evening, but there is no necessity for you to ride to the outpost before you have heard me.”

“I’m not sure it would be advisable to leave you here,” said Winston dryly.

Courthorne smiled ironically.  “Use your eyes.  Would any one expect me to get up and indulge in a fresh folly?  Leave me a little brandy—­I need it—­and go about your work.  You’ll certainly find me here when you want me.”

Winston, glancing at the man’s face, considered this very probable, and went out.  He found his cook, who could be trusted, and said to him, “The man yonder is tolerably sick, and you’ll let him have a little brandy and something to eat when he asks for it.  Still, you’ll bring the decanter away with you, and lock him in whenever you go out.”

The man nodded, and making a hasty breakfast, Winston, who had business at several outlying farms, mounted and rode away.  It was evening before he returned, and found Courthorne lying in a big chair with a cigar in his hand, languidly debonair but apparently ill.  His face was curiously pallid, and his eyes dimmer than they had been, but there was a sardonic twinkle in them.

“You take a look at the decanter,” said the man, who went up with Winston, carrying a lamp.  “He’s been wanting brandy all the time, but it doesn’t seem to have muddled him.”

Winston dismissed the man and sat down in front of Courthorne.

“Well?” he said.

Courthorne laughed.  “You ought to be a witty man, though one would scarcely charge you with that.  You surmised correctly this morning.  It is money I want.”

“You had my answer.”

“Of course.  Still, I don’t want very much in the meanwhile, and you haven’t heard what led up to the demand, or why I came back to you.  You are evidently not curious, but I’m going to tell you.  Soon after I left you, I fell very sick, and lay in the saloon of a little desolate settlement for days.  The place was suffocating, and the wind blew the alkali dust in.  They had only horrible brandy, and bitter water to drink it with, and I lay there on my back, panting, with the flies crawling over me.  I knew if I stayed any longer it would finish me, and when there came a merciful cool day I got myself into the saddle and started off to find you.  I don’t quite know how I made the journey, and during a good deal of it I couldn’t see the prairie, but I knew you would feel there was an obligation on you to do something for me.  Of course, I could put it differently.”

Winston had as little liking for Courthorne as he had ever had, but he remembered the time when he had lain very sick in his lonely log hut.  He also remembered that everything he now held belonged to this man.