Fred, noting the unusual excitement about the fire, came up, followed at a little distance by his wife and The Duke.
"Perhaps he'll sell," he suggested.
"No," said Bill sullenly, "he's a mean cuss." "I know him," said the Hon.

Fred, "let me try him." But the stranger declared the pinto suited him down to the ground and he wouldn't take twice his money for him.
"Why," he protested, "that there's what I call an unusual hoss, and down in Montana for a lady he'd fetch up to a hundred and fifty dollars." In vain they haggled and bargained; the man was immovable.

Eighty dollars he wouldn't look at, a hundred hardly made him hesitate.

At this point Lady Charlotte came down into the light and stood by her husband, who explained the circumstances to her.

She had already heard Bill's description of Gwen's accident and of her part in the church-building schemes.