With the passing days, Phil found Sol Hanson a man of rugged simplicity, as full of fun and frolic as a child; a man strong as a lion, an excellent blacksmith and, what was more to Phil’s advantage, a kind and unselfish teacher who was willing to impart to his willing pupil––as John Royce Pederstone had been––all he knew of his ancient, noble and virile calling.

Phil, with a natural aptitude and a delight in at last doing work of a practical nature, was soon able to shoe a horse, temper and weld iron, bolt and rivet a gate and mend broken farm implements with considerable skill, much to the open-minded and childlike Hanson’s pleasure and astonishment.

Phil gloried in the knowledge of returning vigour and in the steadily increasing size and power of his biceps. His bones no longer showed an anxiety to burst through his skin. The tired ache, after a little exertion, was no longer with him. His chest broadened by inches and his body took on the buoyancy and elasticity that were his real birthright, but of which the close confinement of Ukalla had almost robbed him for good.

Jim Langford delighted in this physical change even more than did Phil himself. He insisted on sparring and wrestling with Phil in the evenings; and, when the latter began more and more to hold his own, Jim chuckled and chuckled to himself in anticipation of some amusing future event he knew was sure to come along sooner or 90 later. When these amusements palled, they threw their latent energies into the roping of a post in the long-suffering Mrs. Clunie’s orchard, and later the moving and more elusive objects on the ranges.

All this time, Phil saw little or nothing of Mayor Brenchfield, for his were busy days, and Brenchfield’s fields of operation were seldom within the confines of the blacksmith shop.

Only once had Eileen Pederstone visited the forge since her father had gone on his electioneering campaign, and that was one afternoon during Phil’s dinner hour when she had run in hurriedly to have her horse shod. She was just mounting to ride off as Phil returned, Hanson having attended to her needs. But her bright smile of remembrance and the wave of salutation with her riding crop left something pleasant with Phil that lingered near him till closing time.

The next day he heard casually that she had joined her father on his tour of the Valley. And he heard something else that disturbed him more; although, why it should do so, he could not really understand, for it was no affair of his. He heard that Mayor Brenchfield had been invited––and had accepted the invitation––to attach himself to the Royce Pederstone party in order to give the candidate the support of his fluent tongue and widespread influence.

Somehow Phil resented Brenchfield’s apparent friendliness with the Pederstones. To his mind, Eileen Pederstone was too trusting, too straight, and honest, and pure-minded to be even for a little time in the company of a man of the stamp of Brenchfield.

He often wondered at the tremendous wall of protection which Brenchfield seemed to have raised about himself, and he puzzled as to where the breach in that wall might be––for of a breach somewhere he was certain. 91 He wondered who would be first to find it, when it would be likely to be widened and carried. And after his wondering came the hope and the determination that he would be there to lend a hand at the storming of the stronghold.

But these were not consuming desires with Phil. He had a life of work ahead of him; he had lost time to make up; he had ambitions to fulfil; great things to do; there were fortunes to be won by determination, shrewdness and ability, and he was not going to be behind in the winning of one of them.

That was the day Sol Hanson was called out to repair some machinery belonging to The Evaporating Company, leaving Phil alone to run the smithy as best he could.

He had been only a few hours at work when Mayor Brenchfield flung himself from his gigantic thoroughbred and came forward into the shop, smiling amiably.

“Well, Phil!––so you’re learning to be a blacksmith. Pretty hard work––isn’t it, old man?”

Phil stopped and looked across at him.

When Brenchfield was most pleasant, he knew that was the time for him to be most on his guard.

“It is more honest than some work I could name.”

“Poof!––any fool can be a smith. Why don’t you get into something worth while?”

“This suits me!”

“You’re devilish snappy, Phil. What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway? Can’t you be civil to Royce Pederstone’s customers? Do you want to turn away business?”

“Stick to business and it will be all right. There is nothing outside of that that I want to talk to you about.”

Brenchfield threw out his bulky chest and smiled, as he walked toward the back door. Suddenly he wheeled 92 round, put his fingers into his vest pocket and pulled out a piece of blue paper.

“Phil,––aren’t you going to let bygones be bygones? I’ll make it well worth your while. There’s going to be big things doing here and I can put you wise.”

To show how little he thought of the suggestion, Phil commenced hammering on his anvil and so drowned Brenchfield’s voice.

The latter came over and laid his hand on Phil’s arm.

“If you can’t stop being foolish, you might at least be mannerly,” he commented.

“Yes?”

“Here,––take this!”

“What is it?” asked Phil.

“Look and see!”

Phil took the paper and opened it out. It was a cheque for fifteen hundred dollars.

“What’s this for?”

Brenchfield threw out his arm casually. “Just to let bygones be bygones!”

“No other tags on it, eh?” asked Phil dubiously.

“Not a damned tag!”

Phil held it in his hand as if weighing the matter over, while Brenchfield watched him narrowly.

“Here’s its twin brother, Phil!”

He handed another cheque over. It was for fifteen hundred dollars also.

“And this one? What’s it for?”

“That’s to get out of here on to-morrow’s train and to stay out.”

“Uhm!” answered Phil. “That makes three thousand dollars.”

Brenchfield’s face took on a little more confidence. He knew the temptation proffered money held for the 93 average man. Only, he forgot that he was not dealing in averages with Phil Ralston.

“I’ve one more––a sort of big brother!” he remarked, handing over cheque number three.

Phil opened it up and whistled.

“Pheugh! Seven––thousand––dollars! Coming up, eh? This must be the price of suicide or a murder, Graham.”

The Mayor frowned, but he held rein on his temper.

“That’s for a little piece of paper in cipher. It is more than you’ll save all your life.”

Phil put the three cheques neatly together, folded them up and went over to the furnace. He placed them between some glowing coals and pushed them home with a bar of iron.

He swung round just in time, for Brenchfield was almost on him.

The latter grinned viciously for a moment, then let his clenched hands drop to his sides.

“I can make or break you; and, by heavens! you’ve made your own choice. I’ll break you till you squeal,––then there will be no ten thousand dollars. It will be get out and be-damned to you.”

“Go to it,” replied Phil easily, “it’s your move.”

Brenchfield walked to the door.

“Come out and have a look at my horse!” he shouted over his shoulder. “She wants shoeing all round.”

Phil followed to where the sleek, black animal was securely tied to a hitching post. Phil had heard of this particular horse of Brenchfield’s. She was the fastest piece of horseflesh in the Valley. She was a beauty, but as vicious with her teeth as she was treacherous with her feet. She had the eye of a devil. No one had been found who could ride her save Brenchfield and no one could groom her but her owner. Several had tried; one 94 had been killed outright, one lamed permanently and others gave up before they were compelled to.

“So this is Beelzebub?” asked Phil.

“Yes!”

“Guess you had better bring her back to-morrow when Hanson is here.”

“Can’t you shoe a horse?”

“Some horses!”

Brenchfield laughed sarcastically.

“Tie her up in the frame then,” said Phil, “and I’ll do it. Hanson told me she always has to be shod in that way.”

Brenchfield laughed again.

“A bright blacksmith you are!” he grunted.

The young smith’s face flushed angrily.

“All right!” he retorted, “leave her where she is. There isn’t any horse or anything else belonging to you or connected with you,––and including you––that I can’t put shoes on.”

Phil went over to look more closely at the animal, as the Mayor went to her head and stroked her nose.

“Sure you’re not scared? She’s a heller!”

Phil walked round her without answering. He was at her rear, closer than he should have been, when Brenchfield suddenly reached and whispered a peculiar, grating, German-like, guttural sound in the mare’s ear.

Like lightning her ears went back, her eyes spurted fire, a thrill ran through her body and her two hind feet shot into the air. Brenchfield shouted warningly.

Phil, only half alert, sprang aside. The iron-ringed hoofs flashed past him, one biting along his cheek and ripping it an eighth of an inch deep. Phil staggered to the wall, as the horse continued to plunge and rear in a paroxysm of madness. Her owner tried to pacify her, but he made little headway with the job.

“Good Lord, man! as a man working among horses don’t you know better than to hang around the flanks of one of her kind like that? If she had hit you, it would have been all day with you.”

Phil pulled himself together.

“Do you think so?” he remarked in a much more casual tone than he felt.

“It looked for a minute like a bad accident.”

“It looked to me like attempted murder,” retorted Phil.

Brenchfield frowned, but ignored the opening.

“She’s a vicious devil. She takes turns like that occasionally when a stranger is near her.”

“You mean you give her turns like that occasionally?” put in Phil suggestively.

At that moment, Jim Langford sauntered round the smithy building into the yard.

“Hullo! A love-feast going on! What’s the argument, fellows? What have you been doing to your cheek, Phil?”

The Mayor growled.

“This blacksmith pal of yours thought he could shoe Beelzebub. She’s got a mad streak on and pretty nearly laid him out. Now he blames me for rousing her, as if she needs any rousing.”

“And so you did! I’m not blind or deaf. I saw you and heard you as well.”

Brenchfield laughed and tapped his forehead significantly to Langford. But Langford did not respond.

“You mean, Phil, that the Mayor knows what they call ‘the horse word’?”

“He seems to possess one of them, at any rate,” replied Phil.

“So there are two of them?” laughed Jim.

“There ought to be, if there are any at all;––just as 96 there is hot and cold, day and night, right and wrong, good and bad, positive and negative.”

“That sounds reasonable enough, too,” answered Jim, who turned suddenly to Brenchfield as the latter was frantically endeavouring to quiet the plunging Beelzebub.

“Now then, for the land’s sake, Graham Brenchfield Lavengro, why don’t you use that other word? What’s the good of creating a devil if you can’t keep the curb on him?”

Brenchfield commenced to belabour the horse in his irritation, but the more he struck the more nervous and vicious she seemed to grow.

The sight set Phil’s thoughts awandering. A little door in his brain opened and he remembered the queer little wizened-faced horse rustler in for life at Ukalla Jail, whom he had befriended and who in return had given him a word which he said might be useful some day, as it was guaranteed to quiet the wildest horses. At the time, he had grinned at it in his incredulity, but now the thought came, “What if there might be something in it?”

He had not noted that little word, and now he had a difficulty in recalling it. But, as he reviewed the scene at Ukalla Jail in his mind once more, it came to him. He was not quite certain, but he fancied he had it. What if its strange power were true? It was a queer, soft, foreign-sounding word.

There could be no harm in giving it a trial and, if by lucky chance it proved successful, what a triumph he would have over the arrogant Mayor of Vernock, and over Jim Langford as well.

He smiled to himself now at his credulity, as he had done once at his incredulity over the same peculiar word. Then recurred to him that wonderful little saying of Will Shakespeare’s:––

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Encouraged by the quotation and angered by Brenchfield’s cruelty, he decided to take a chance. He sprang to the mare’s head.

“Let the horse alone, man,” he cried. “Can’t you see you are only making her worse?”

“What the devil do you know about horses? She’ll eat you alive, you fool of a tenderfoot.”

“I’m willing to take a chance. Stand back and see what I know.”

Brenchfield gazed at him in surprise, but, ever ready to be enlightened, he stepped back.

“Jim,––go to the other end of the yard; take him with you,––and watch.”

Langford, anxious at all times to be amused; Brenchfield grinning in derision; both went some thirty yards out of hearing, while the horse continued to kick and plunge.

Holding out his hand, Phil drew nearer to the mad animal.

Quietly he murmured the three-syllabled word which he had so dearly earned from his convict friend. The soft and soothing effect of its vowels surprised Phil himself. Time and again he repeated the word, going closer and closer.

Beelzebub stopped her plunging. She cocked forward her ears, straining and listening intently. Phil kept on––as a slow tremor passed over the horse. Slowly the wicked gleam died from her eyes. Phil’s hand reached out and touched her nose. He stroked it cautiously––gently. He reached and whispered the word close in her ear. She sighed almost like a woman. In a moment more Phil’s left hand was on her sleek neck and running 98 over her back. She whinnied, then her nozzle sought his arm and rubbed along it to his shoulder.

She became as quiet as the proverbial lamb.

Langford and Brenchfield came forward, blank amazement showing in their faces.

“By jiminy!––where the dickens did you learn that? Did I mention Lavengro. Lavengro’s a has been, in fact, a never waser alongside that.”

He slapped Phil’s shoulder. “Good old Phil!”

Surly as an old dog, Brenchfield loosened the reins from the hitching post.

“I’ll give you five thousand dollars for that word,” he said, turning suddenly to Phil.

“You’re mighty free with your money to-day. You must have a lien on somebody’s fortune.”

“Five thousand dollars,” repeated the Mayor.

“Not on your life!” answered Phil. “It was given me strictly on the understanding that it was not to be sold.”

“Well then,––I’ll give you my ‘word’ in exchange for yours.”

“Your ‘word,’––yours? No, Mister Mayor, I haven’t any desire to know your ‘word.’ Keep it,––it fits you. The two words are just about the difference between you and me,––and, God knows, I’m no saint.”

Brenchfield laughed in his easy, devil-may-care way. He jumped on to the back of his horse without touching her with his hands.

“Aren’t you going to let me shoe her?” asked Phil in assumed disappointment.

For answer, the Mayor touched the horse’s side with his spur, trotted round the end of the building and away.

“Phil, old man, where did you learn to subdue horses?”

“I got the word from an old horsey-man whom I befriended once.”

“Did you ever use it before?”

“No! I just rethought of it a moment or two before I tried it out.”

“Lordy! I shouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. You know, Beelzebub is positively the worst mare in the Valley. Sol Hanson will throw a fit of delight when he hears about this.

“I’ve heard some queer things about horses, Phil. I once knew an old horse dealer in the East of Scotland. He owned a famous Clydesdale stud stallion. He used to travel with it all over the country. Old Sommerville, they called the man, was a terrible booze artist. He was drunk day and night. But never so drunk that he couldn’t look after himself and his stallion. You know, just always half-full of whisky. Well,––there wasn’t a paddock that could hold that stallion. It had killed several men and had created tremendous havoc time and again in stables. If it had not been for its qualities as a perfect specimen of a horse, the Government would have ordered its destruction. A special friend of old Sommerville’s died, and, on the day of the funeral, Sommerville swore he wouldn’t taste liquor for twenty-four hours. He didn’t. That night he was taking the stallion from one village to another. He failed to turn up at the village he intended making for, and next morning the stallion was discovered miles away, while later in the day a farm-hand came upon a mass of bloody bones and flesh pounded to mince meat among the earth at the side of a road.”

“I quite believe it,” said Phil, “because I have heard before somewhere that a horse––no matter how vicious it may be––will never interfere with a man smelling of liquor.”

“Well,––I guess the horse had more sense than some of us have,” said Jim.

“Sound horse sense, I suppose,” laughed Phil.

“But say!––you and Brenchfield don’t seem to love each other exactly. What is it, Phil?”

“Oh!––we don’t pull together, that’s all.”

“Anybody can see that. Did you ever meet him before coming here?”

“Yes!” answered Phil shortly.

“Well, old chum, it isn’t any of my business, but the Mayor’s an oily-tongued rotter and well worth the watching. I’m lying in wait for him myself. He doesn’t love me any more than he seems to love you, so if I can help you out any time, let me know.

“He’s got the nerve of the devil. He is setting up to little Eileen Pederstone too, the hound. I hope to God a fine woman like she is doesn’t have such putrid luck as to marry such a miserable son-of-a-gun. But it is generally that way though, and that coyote nearly always gets what he goes after. He seems to be making money hand over fist. His stock is the largest and best in the Valley. They say he owns half a dozen mines up north and more ranch land in the Okanagan than he can ever use.

“Eileen Pederstone has gone after her dad campaigning, and I heard up at the Court House this morning that Brenchfield is going off in a day or so, invited by the Party to join Royce Pederstone and help along his election with his influence and his glib tongue.

“If Pederstone gets in––as he is sure to do––the next thing we will be hearing will be the Mayor’s engagement with Eileen.

“Honest to goodness!––I think I would plug him full of bullet holes on a dark night if that happened.”