“We’ve had enough of this fooling, and he’ll be grateful to me to-morrow,” he said.

Then his captive was thrust, resisting strenuously, out of the room, and with Dane’s assistance conveyed to the waiting wagon, into which he was flung almost speechless with indignation.

“Now,” said Dane quietly, “you’ve given us a good deal more trouble than you’re worth, Ferris, and if you attempt to get out again I’ll break your head for you.  Tell Courthorne how much that fellow got from you.”

In another ten minutes they had jolted across the railroad track and were speeding through the silence of the lonely prairie.  Above them the clear stars flung their cold radiance down through vast distances of liquid indigo, and the soft beat of hoofs was the only sound that disturbed the solemn stillness of the wilderness.  Dane drew in a great breath of the cool night air, and laughed quietly.

“It’s a good deal more wholesome here in several ways,” said he.  “If you’re wise, you’ll let up on card playing and hanging around the settlement, Ferris, and stick to farming.  Even if you lose almost as many dollars over it, it will pay you considerably better.  Now, that’s all I’m going to tell you, but I know what I’m speaking of, because I’ve had my fling—­and it’s costing me more than I care to figure out still.  You, however, can pull up, because by this time you have no doubt found out a good deal, if you’re not all a fool.  Curiosity’s at the bottom of half our youthful follies, isn’t it, Courthorne?  We want to know what the things forbidden actually taste like.”

“Well,” said Winston dryly, “I don’t quite know.  You see, I had very little money in the old country and still less leisure here to spend either on that kind of experimenting.  Where to get enough to eat was the one problem that worried me.”

Dane turned a trifle sharply.  “We are, I fancy, tolerably good friends.  Isn’t it a little unnecessary for you to adopt that tone with me?”

Winston laughed, but made no answer, and their companion said nothing at all.  Either the night wind had a drowsy effect on him, or he was moodily resentful, for it was not until Winston pulled up before the homestead whose lands he farmed indifferently under Barrington’s supervision, that he opened his mouth.

“You have got off very cheaply to-night, and if you’re wise you’ll let that kind of thing alone in future,” said Winston quietly.

The lad stepped down from the wagon and then stood still.  “I resent advice from you as much as I do your—­uncalled for insolence an hour or two ago,” he said.  “To lie low until honest men got used to him would be considerably more becoming to a man like you.”

“Well,” said Winston, stung into forgetfulness, “I’m not going to offend in that fashion again, and you can go to the devil in the way that most pleases you.  In fact, I only pulled you out of the pit to-night because a lady, who apparently takes a quite unwarranted interest in you, asked me to.”