The Spoilers of the Valley Part 75

"Only I been left with one h.e.l.l-job. Can't get n.o.body take your place.

You dam-fine blacksmith all shot toboggan to the devil."

"Say, old man!" put in Phil. "I know a man that will suit you down to the ground."

"What you call him?" asked Sol.

"Smiler Hanson!"

Sol laughed.

"Aw, go on! You crazy! Smiler dam-fine little rotter all right, but he no good, no work, headpiece all shot toboggan to blazes."

"Don't you believe it? Why, he only wants to be given a show."

Sol shook his head.

"Shake away!" continued Phil. "Smiler's getting a big fellow and he is as strong as a bull. He is simply foolish over horses. Why--I can't chase him out of this place at times."

As Phil was going on with his eulogy, the head of the grinning Smiler popped round the door-post.

"Hi, there;--come here!" shouted Phil.

Smiler came in, tattered and unkempt as usual, but wiry and sinewed, as anyone could see at a glance. A different Smiler from what he was only a short year ago before he was regularly fed! The open air and the unfettered life, in conjunction with Mrs. Sol Hanson's wholesome fare had worked miracles on his const.i.tution.

"I'll bet you five dollars, Sol, that this young rascal can make a horse shoe right now from a straight piece of steel, and do it better too than a whole lot of journeymen blacksmiths that I know."

"Aw, go on!" laughed Sol.

"Why, man!--that kid's been in and around this shop for years.

Everybody thinks he is crazy and calls him crazy. How could he be anything else but crazy? with such a bunch of mean thought from his fellow men to contend with? You would be crazy yourself under similar circ.u.mstances.

"Give the boy one real chance."

"Forget it! No good!" said Sol.

Phil took out his purse and pulled out a bill.

"All right!--there's my five dollars. Cover it,--and we'll prove it right here."

"I take you!" cried Sol.

"And if Smiler makes a tolerable shape at it, you'll start him in?"

"You bet!"

"Here, Smiler! You show Sol how to make a horse shoe."

Smiler stood and grinned, shaking his head in the direction of Sol, who had always shown a tradesman's rooted objection to anyone handling any of his tools at any time and had more than once chased Smiler out of the premises for touching a hammer.

"It is all right, son! Sol won't say a word. Go to it; and, if you do it right that ten dollars there are yours and you'll get working here with Sol all the time and will make plenty of money."

Smiler threw off his ragged coat in a second, tied on one of Phil's old ap.r.o.ns in a business-like way, rolled up his sleeves--what was left of the lower parts of them--picked up a piece of steel, thrust it into the heart of the fire and started the bellows roaring.

And in time--before the bewildered face of Sol Hanson--he took out the almost white-hot iron, tested it, hammered it and turned it, with the skill of a master-craftsman, heeding no one; all intent on his work. He chiselled it, he beat it, he turned it and holed it, then tempered the completed shoe, handing it over finally with a crooked smile on his begrimed and sweat-glistening face.

Sol was positively dazed. When he did come to a true realisation of what Smiler had done, he sprang on him, hugging him and G.o.d-blessing him until Phil began to fear for the youngster's personal safety.

"Well," said Phil, picking up the ten dollars and handing them over to Smiler, "I guess, Sol, you have found your man?"

"Found him! You bet your life, I got him. Yiminy crickets!--and I make him one dam-fine fellow now, I tell you what. He my son now--my little Smiler."

And Smiler smiled, as Phil hurried back to relieve Jim at the office.

When Phil got back there, he found Jim on tenterhooks of excitement awaiting his arrival, for he had had a prospective buyer just off the train, who wanted Jim to drive him out to inspect a few ranches in the neighbourhood, immediately after he had a wash-up and some lunch at the Kenora; and Jim had been fearing that Phil would not get back in time.

"He's a farmer from the Prairies--so I mean to land him. They are the kind that ha'e the bawbees!"

"Have the what?" asked Phil; for despite his long contact with Jim, the latter was constantly springing a Scotticism on him that he had not heard before.

"Bawbee, man!--sillar,--ha'pennies,--one cent pieces!"

"A fat lot of good one cent pieces will do when it comes to buying a ranch in British Columbia."

Jim threw up his hands at Phil's apparent lack of wit, then he laughed and rushed across the road for a bite of lunch at a small restaurant.

He was back in a few minutes and before his prairie farmer returned.

Jim introduced the farmer to his partner as "Mr. Phil Ralston, one of the most shrewd financial men in the West," loaded him up with cigars, then got him into his Catteline-Harvard, drove him slowly past every other real-estate office in town, then out into the country. He took so long on that trip that Phil was on the point of closing up for the day ere he returned.

He was bubbling over with excitement and perspiring freely. He clapped Phil on the back, then sat down with a show of collapse.

"Come on! Tell me all about it, you clam."

"Great Scot!" said Jim, "and they say that it is a 'lotus eater's' job selling real-estate. I've shown that hard-headed old son-of-a-gun nine ranches this afternoon. I've talked climate, position, irrigation, soil, seed and production for six solid hours. I would rather write a 'dime novel' every day in my life, than this." He mopped his brow. "It is a great life if you stay with it!"

"Did you sell him?" asked the matter-of-fact Phil.

"Did I? Sure I did! I've sold old Eddie Farleigh's sixty acres for thirty thousand dollars cash--one of the best orchards in the Valley.

The old fellow is coming in to-morrow morning to close the deal."

"But can you deliver the goods? We really haven't the listing of it.

It is one of Peter Brixton's."

"We'll make a bold try at it. Thirty thousand dollars is Peter's listed price, and old Eddie got the property years ago for a song. I happen to know he is extremely anxious to clean up and go to his daughter at the Coast.

"Five per cent of thirty thousand dollars is fifteen hundred dollars.

Peter is a good-natured sort. He isn't going to turn down half or even a third of that commission."