The Wild Olive

the thought came to him how easy it had all been. He paused for a minute in his work of inspection-standing by an open window, where a whiff of fresh

g out; wheat, cattle, hides, and beef were pouring in. In the confusion of tongues that reached him he could, on occasions, catch the tones of Spaniard, Frenchman, Swede, and Italian, together with all the varieties of English speech from Highland Scotch to Coc

He was not a rover, and still less an adventurer, in any of the senses attached to that word. His instincts were for the settled, the well-ordered, and the practical. He would have been content with any humdrum existence that permitted his peaceable, commercially gifted soul to develop in its natural environment. The process, therefore, by which Norr

d contented to a degree that made them incomprehensible to the ambitious, upward-toiling American set over them. They sat, or lounged, on piles of wood, or on the floor, some chattering, most of them asleep. He had begun like them. H

asible in time. He had been given to understand that what the Argentine, in common with some other countries, needed most was neither men nor capital, but intelligence.

or from seaside resorts to the mountains he passed unnoticed. At Quebec he was one of the crowd of tourists come to see the picturesque old town. At Rimouski he was lost among the trainful of people from the Canadian maritime provinces taking the Atlantic steamer at a convenient port. He lived through each minute in expectation of the law's tap on his shoulder; but he acquired the habit of nonchalance. On shipboard it was a relief to be able to shut himself up in his cabin-his suite!--feigning sickness, but really allowing his taut nerves to relax, as he watched first the outlines of the

ility. An occasional word from a neighbor, or an invitation to "take a hand at poker," or to "have a cocktail," was like an assurance to a man who fancies himse

ith irrelevant interludes on business. It never went beyond the range of topics possible to the American or Canadian merchants, professional men, politicians, and saloon-keepers, who form the

ticed him, because they occupied adjoining steamer-chairs-a tall, sallow Englishman of the ineffectual type, with sagging shoulders, a drooping mustache, and furtive eyes. Ford had scarcely thought of th

?" he ventured to ask, on the next occasion when h

his mouth, glanced sidewise from the magazine

place did it

y rot

e Englishman's wife as she leaned forward and peeped at him across her husband's brier-root. Ther

t's the land of n

d without looking up.

k if you

for a wh

e fit for a-gentleman

they had tried Mexico, California, and Saskatchewan in addition to South America. From the impatience with which she shook the foot just visible beneath the steamer-rug, while all the rest of her bearing feigned repos

there-Stephens and Jarrott. Do you

grunted again. "Wool an

e up, with a kind of feverish eagerness to have her say. "They

lot of superfluous questions to you,

nos Aires and out in the Camp. Of course, the old Spanish families are all right; but when it comes to foreigners a social catechism wouldn't do. That's on

he Jockey Club-lot of beastly native bounders in the Jockey Club-heard a story at the Jockey Club of a little Irish Johnny who'd been cheatin' at cards. Three other asses kicked him

to laugh, but made a

ith the country-for people like us. There's too much competition in brains. My husband hit the right nail on the head when he said t

The words seemed to offer him the clew to life. It was the answer to the question, "What should I do there?" which positively asked itself, whenever he thought of seeking a refuge

n for London his plans appeared before him already formed. The country where few questions were asked and the past had no importance was clearly the place for him. Within a fortnight he was a second-class passenger on boar

uld have seemed to him like the heroine of a play. He would have reproached himself for disloyalty if the intensity of each minute as he had to meet it had not been an excuse for him. The time would come wh

rtain amount of bluff. He meant to begin the attempt immediately on reaching London, but the difficulty of appearing in a hotel under one name while everything he brought with him bore another was patent to him at once. Similarly, he could not receive the correspondence incidental to his outfit and his passage under the name of Ford in a house where h

nd a ready-made black bow-tie. He might have been a butler, an elderly valet, or a member of some discreet religious order in street costume. Ford had heard a flippant y

ord, using the conveniently ambiguou

claiming the name for the first time without hesitation, but feeling

scure instinct of affinity. "He looks like an old chap who could give one information," was Strange's own way of putting it, not caring to confess that he was feeling after a bi

t little for himself. It was a pleasure to share the fruits of his experience with one so eager to learn, for young men were not in the habit of showing him deference. He c

and partner, Mr. Colfax. Mrs. Colfax, a pretty little woman, who hadn't old age in her blood either-one could see that-had gone back to the United States with her child-but a child!--blond as an angel-altogether darling-tout à fait mignonne. Monsieur Durand thought he remembered hearing that Mrs. Colfax had married again, but he couldn't say for certain. What would you? One heard so many things. He knew less of the family since the last bo

te, clear-cut face, where the thin lips were compressed into permanent lines of pain, and the sunken brown eyes looked out from under scholarly brows with the kind of hopeful anguish a penitent soul might feel in the midst of purifying flames. He remembered again that the

ng in the Argentine without a working knowledge of that tongue. Monsieur Durand himself gave lessons in it-and in French-but in the English and American colonies of Buenos Aires exclusively. There were reasons why he did not care to teach among Catholics, though he himself was a fervent one, and he hoped-repentant. He pronounced the last word with some emphasis, as though to call Strange's attention to it. If his young friend

sed a little money-even a very little-Oh, he did? Then so much the better. He need not live on it entirely, but it would be something to fall back on while getting the rudiments of his education. In the mean time he could learn a little about wool if he picked up

for "gentlemen only." Mrs. Wilson was a Protestant-what they called a Methodist, he believed-but her house was clean, with a few flowers in the patio, very different from the frightful conventillo

ng. He would live in a mud hut, dirty, isolated, with no companionship but that of the Italian laborers and their womenkind. But the outdoor existence would do him good; the air over the pampas was like wine; and the food would not be as bad as he might expect. There would be an abundance of excellent meat, chiefly mutton, it

and crossings again, that bred new varieties as if they were roses, to trace the processes by which the Argentine pampas supply novel resources to the European manufacturer, and the European manufacturer turns out t

great city was waking to the knowledge of her queenship in the southern world-when the commercial hordes of the north were sweeping down in thousands of ships across the equator to outdo each other in her markets, it was an inspiring thing merely to be alive and busy. He was as proud of Stephens and Jarrott's long brick shed, where the sun beat pitilessly on the corrugated iron roof, and the smell of wool nearly sick

describe him as "looking like a wooden man just coming into life," so that he was enabled to recognize him now. He did look something like a wooden man, in that the long, lean face, of the tone of parchment, was marked by the few, deep, almost perpendicular folds that give all the expression there is to a Swiss or German medieval statue of a saint or warrior in painted oak. One could see it was a face that rarely smiled, though there was plenty of life in the deep-set, gray-blue eyes, tog

charge of

s,

t, Mr. Jarrott's gaze travelled down the length of the shed to where

American,

s,

ld are

ite twe

s your

rt Str

the Stranges

, s

der man's eyes wandered once more over the shed a

pick up a li

it. Hablo Espa?ol,

d at him for a mi

mejor," he said, after a b