CHAPTER XVII.
SAWNEY AND HIS OLD LOVE.
Self-conceit is a great source of happiness, a buffer that softens all the jolts of life.

After David Sawney's failure to capture Perritaut's half-breed Atlantis and her golden apples at one dash, one would have expected him to be a little modest in approaching his old love again; but forty-eight hours after her return from Glenfield, he was paying his "devours," as he called them, to little Katy Charlton.

He felt confident of winning--he was one of that class of men who believe themselves able to carry off anybody they choose.

He inventoried his own attractions with great complacency; he had good health, a good claim, and, as he often boasted, had been "raised rich," or, as he otherwise stated it, "cradled in the lap of luxury." His father was one of those rich Illinois farmers who are none the less coarse for all their money and farms.

Owing to reverses of fortune, Dave had inherited none of the wealth, but all of the coarseness of grain.