Page:Outlawandlawmak00praegoog.djvu/52

40 "Is he young?"

"No, not exactly. I suppose he is close upon forty."

"Is he married?"

"No." Mr. Trant laughed. "He is fair game—and difficult game."

Elsie drew herself up a little. She was quite sure now that Trant was very ill-bred.

"What do you mean? Does he not like ladies? You said he was a ladies' man."

"Oh yes, he likes ladies. He is not a marrying man though, Blake. He doesn't care about anything except"

"Except"

"Except adventure, amusement, making money."

"But people say that Baròlin isn't exactly a money-making place."

"Oh! They say that, do they? Well, perhaps they are right. But then Blake makes money in other ways. He has got means. He is a luckier sort of devil than I am—obliged to stick at Baròlin all the year round."

"I say," put in Lord Horace, "is your partner any relation to the Blakes of Castle Coola? Because you know my people know the Coola people. I've been fishin' close there."

"I don't know," said Mr. Trant. "I should think it isn't unlikely. Blake doesn't like being questioned about his people—says he cut the whole lot when he came out here."

"Got into a row, perhaps," said Lord Horace. "That would be a Blake all over. They're a wild Irish lot—got a dash of Fenianism in the blood. There was a Blake who got drowned. He tumbled off a cliff or something. Waveryng knew him. He was a chap in a crack regiment, too. Well, it came out afterwards that he had been preaching to the chaps in the regiment, inciting to mutiny—like the Boyle O'Reilly business, you know."

"Yes, I know," said Trant, stolidly.

"They said there would have been a court martial if the fellow hadn't died; so it's lucky, perhaps, for him that he was drowned."