Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/214

  place on the whiffletree again, Ranald stood ready for work.

"A win, lad! A win!" cried old Farquhar, more excited than he had been for years.

"It is no win," said Aleck, hotly.

"No, no, lads," said Macdonald Bhain, before Farquhar could reply. "It is as even a match as could well be. It is fine teams you both have got, and you have handled them well."

But all the same, Ranald's friends were wildly enthusiastic over what they called his victory, and Don could hardly keep his hands off him, for very joy.

Aleck, on the other hand, while claiming the victory because his team was at the pile first, was not so sure of it but that he was ready to fight with any one venturing to dispute his claim. But the men all laughed at him and his rage, until he found it wiser to be good-humored about it.

"Yon lad will be making as good a man as yourself," said Farquhar, enthusiastically, to Macdonald Bhain, as Ranald drove his team to the stable.

"Aye, and a better, pray God," said Macdonald Bhain, fervently, looking after Ranald with loving eyes. There was no child in his home, and his brother's son was as his own.

Meanwhile Don had hurried on, leaving his team with Murdie that he might sing Ranald's praises to "the girls," with whom Ranald was highly popular, although he avoided them, or perhaps because he did so, the ways of women being past understanding.