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“Which I accounts for said hat reachin’ the ranch, because it’s Friday and the boys not in town,” Tony whispered to me.

As I happened to be the only man in sight, the stranger addressed me.

“I am looking,” said he in a peculiar, sing-song manner I have since learned to be English, “for the Honourable Timothy Clare. Is he here?”

“Oh, you’re looking for him are you?” said I. “And who might you be?”

You see, I liked Tim, and I didn’t intend to deliver him over into trouble.

The man picked a pair of eye-glasses off his stomach where they dangled at the end of a chain, perched them on his nose, and stared me over. I must have looked uncompromising, for after a few seconds he abruptly wrinkled his nose so that the glasses fell promptly to his stomach again, felt his waistcoat pocket, and produced a card. I took it, and read:

JEFFRIES CASE, Barrister.

“A lawyer!” said I suspiciously.

“My dear man,” he rejoined with a slight impatience, “I am not here to do your young friend a harm. In fact, my firm have been his family solicitors for generations.”

“Very well,” I agreed, and led the way to the one-room adobe that Tim and I occupied.

If I had expected an enthusiastic greeting for the boyhood friend from the old home, I would have been disappointed. Tim was sitting with his back to the door reading an old magazine. When we entered he glanced over his shoulder.

“Ah, Case,” said he, and went on reading. After a moment he said without looking up, “Sit down.”

The little man took it calmly, deposited himself in a chair and his bag between his feet, and looked about him daintily at our rough quarters. I made a move to go, whereupon Tim laid down his magazine, yawned, stretched his arms over his head, and sighed.

“Don’t go, Harry,” he begged. “Well, Case,” he addressed the barrister, “what is it this time? Must be something devilish important to bring you–how many thousand miles is it–into such a country as this.”

“It is important, Mr. Clare,” stated the lawyer in his dry sing-song tones; “but my journey might have been avoided had you paid some attention to my letters.”

“Letters!” repeated Tim, opening his eyes. “My dear chap, I’ve had no letters.”

“Addressed as usual to your New York bankers.”

Tim laughed softly. “Where they are, with my last two quarters’ allowance. I especially instructed them to send me no mail. One spends no money in this country.” He paused, pulling his moustache. “I’m truly sorry you had to come so far,” he continued, “and if your business is, as I suspect, the old one of inducing me to return to my dear uncle’s arms, I assure you the mission will prove quite fruitless. Uncle Hillary and I could never live in the same county, let alone the same house.”

“And yet your uncle, the Viscount Mar, was very fond of you,” ventured Case. “Your allowances–“

“Oh, I grant you his generosity in MONEY affairs–“

“He has continued that generosity in the terms of his will, and those terms I am here to communicate to you.”

“Uncle Hillary is dead!” cried Tim.

“He passed away the sixteenth of last June.”

A slight pause ensued.

“I am ready to hear you,” said Tim soberly, at last.

The barrister stooped and began to fumble with his bag.

“No, not that!” cried Tim, with some impatience. “Tell me in your own words.”

The lawyer sat back and pressed his finger points together over his stomach.

“The late Viscount,” said he, “has been graciously pleased to leave you in fee simple his entire estate of Staghurst, together with its buildings, rentals, and privileges. This, besides the residential rights, amounts to some ten thousands pounds sterling per annum.”

“A little less than fifty thousand dollars a year, Harry,” Tim shot over his shoulder at me.

“There is one condition,” put in the lawyer.