He had perhaps spoken a trifle more loudly than he had intended, and there were a good many of the Silverdale farmers with a few of their wives and daughters whose attention was not wholly confined to the efforts of Mrs. Macdonald at the piano in the long room just then.  In any case a voice broke through the silence that followed the final chords.

“Ferris could tell us if he liked.  He was there that night.”

Ferris, who had cause for doing so, looked uncomfortable, and endeavored to sign to the first speaker that it was not desirable to pursue the topic.

“I have been in tolerably often of late.  Had things to attend to,” he said.

The other man was, however, possessed by a mischievous spirit or did not understand him.  “You may just as well tell us now as later, because you never kept a secret in your life,” he said.

In the meantime, several of the others had gathered about them, and Mrs. Macdonald, who had joined the group, smiled as she said, “There is evidently something interesting going on.  Mayn’t I know, Gordon?”

“Of course,” said the man who had visited the settlement.  “You shall know as much as I do, though that is little, and if it excites your curiosity, you can ask Ferris for the rest.  He is only anxious to enhance the value of his story by being mysterious.  Well, there was a more or less dramatic happening, of the kind our friends in the old country unwarrantably fancy is typical of the West, in the saloon of the settlement not long ago.  Cards, pistols, a professional gambler, and the unmasking of foul play, don’t you know.  Somebody from Silverdale played the leading role.”

“How interesting!” said a young English girl.  “Now, I used to fancy something of that kind happened here every day before I came out to the prairie.  Please tell us, Mr. Ferris!  One would like to find there is just a trace of reality in our picturesque fancies of debonair desperadoes and big-hatted cavaliers.”

There was a curious expression in Ferris’s face, but as he glanced around at the rest, who were regarding him expectantly, he did not observe that Maud Barrington and her aunt had just come in and stood close behind him.

“Can’t you see there’s no getting out of it, Ferris?” said somebody.

“Well,” said the lad in desperation, “I can only admit that Gordon is right.  There was foul play and a pistol drawn, but I’m sorry that I can’t add anything further.  In fact, it wouldn’t be quite fair of me.”

“But the man from Silverdale?” asked Mrs. Macdonald.

“I’m afraid,” said Ferris, with the air of one shielding a friend, “I can’t tell you anything about him.”

“I know Mr. Courthorne drove in that night,” said the young English girl, who was not endued with very much discretion.

“Courthorne,” said one of the bystanders, and there was a momentary silence that was very expressive.  “Was he concerned in what took place, Ferris?”