of the water-willows that grew along the river edge, and whose paler
green was the prominent feature of the landscape, or in the sweet
contrast at the horizon where grass-green earth met the light blue
northern sky. But the scenery none the less suggested fruitful themes for
talk to the two gentlemen on the back-seat.

"I've got money loaned on that quarter at three per cent a month and five
after due. The mortgage has a waiver in it too. You see, the security was
unusually good, and that was why I let him have it so low." This was what
Mr. Minorkey said at intervals and with some variations, generally adding
something like this: "The day I went to look at that claim, to see
whether the security was good or not, I got caught in the rain. I
expected it would kill me. Well, sir, I was taken that night with a
pain--just here--and it ran through the lung to the point of the
shoulder-blade--here. I had to get my feet into a tub of water and take
some brandy. I'd a had pleurisy if I'd been in any other country but
this. I tell you, nothing saved me but the oxygen in this air. There!
there's a forty that I lent a hundred dollars on at five per cent a month
and six per cent after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage. The day I
came here to see this I was nearly dead. I had a--"

Just here the fat gentleman would get desperate, and, by way of
preventing the completion of the dolorous account, would break out with:
"That's Sokaska, the new town laid out by Johnson--that hill over there,
where you see those stakes. I bought a corner-lot fronting the public
square, and a block opposite where they hope to get a factory. There's a
brook runs through the town, and they think it has water enough and fall
enough to furnish a water-power part of the day, during part of the year,
and they hope to get a factory located there. There'll be a territorial
road run through from St. Paul next spring if they can get a bill through