across his back and down his horse's flanks. He reined in indignantly
and stood up in his stirrups. Nothing was to be seen above the level of
the grain. Beneath him the trailing riata had as noiselessly vanished
as if it had been indeed a gliding snake. Had he been the victim of a
practical joke, or of the blunder of some stupid vacquero? For he made
no doubt that it was the lasso of one of the performers he had watched
that afternoon. But his preoccupied mind did not dwell long upon it, and
by the time he had reached the wall of the old garden, the incident was
forgotten.
CHAPTER VI.
Relieved of Clarence Brant's embarrassing presence, Jim Hooker did not,
however, refuse to avail himself of that opportunity to expound to the
farmer and his family the immense wealth, influence, and importance of
the friend who had just left him. Although Clarence's plan had suggested
reticence, Hooker could not forego the pleasure of informing them
that "Clar" Brant had just offered to let him into an extensive land
speculation. He had previously declined a large share or original
location in a mine of Clarence's, now worth a million, because it was
not "his style." But the land speculation in a country of unsettled
titles and lawless men, he need not remind them, required some
experience of border warfare. He would not say positively, although he
left them to draw their own conclusions with gloomy significance, that
this was why Clarence had sought him. With this dark suggestion, he took
leave of Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins and their daughter Phoebe the next day,
not without some natural human emotion, and peacefully drove his team
and wagon into the settlement of Fair Plains.
He was not prepared, however, for a sudden realization of his
imaginative prospects. A few days after his arrival in Fair Plains,
he received a letter from Clarence, explaining that he had not time to
return to Hooker to consult him, but had, nevertheless, fulfilled his
promise, by taking advantage of an opportunity of purchasing the Spanish
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