Then Courthorne laughed in his usual indolent fashion as he said, "Well, it's all decided, and I don't even ask your word.

To-morrow will see the husk sloughed off and for a fortnight you'll be Lance Courthorne.

I hope you feel equal to playing the role with credit, because I wouldn't entrust my good fame to everybody." Winston smiled dryly.

"I fancy I shall," he said, and long afterwards recalled the words.

"You see, I had ambitions in my callow days, and it's not my fault that hitherto I've never had a part to play." Rancher Winston was, however, wrong in this.