Bruce's thoughts were a jumble of dynamos and motors, direct and alternating currents, volts and amperes, when James J. Jennings' papier-mache suitcase hit him in the shins in the lobby of a hotel which was headquarters for mining men in the somnolent city on the Pacific coast.
Jennings promptly dropped the suitcase and thrust out a hand which still had ground into the knuckles oil and smudge acquired while helping put up a power-plant in Alaska.
"Where did you come from--what are you doing here?" Bruce had seen him last in Alberta.
"Been up in the North Country, but"--James lifted a remarkable upper lip in a shy grin of ecstasy--"I aims to git married and stay in the States."
"Shoo--you don't say so!" Bruce exclaimed, properly surprised and congratulatory.
"Yep," he beamed, then dropped, as he added mournfully, "So fur I've had awful bad luck with my wives; they allus die or quit me."
Bruce ventured the hope that his luck might change with this, his last--and as Jennings explained--fifth venture.
"I kinda think it will," the prospective bridegroom declared hopefully. "Bertha looks--er--lasty. But what about you?--I never knew you'd even saw a city."
"I'm a sure enough Sourdough," Bruce admitted, "but I did stray out of the timber. Register, and I'll tell you all about it--maybe you can help me."
Jennings, Bruce commented mentally as he watched him walk to the desk, was not exactly the person he would have singled out as the hero of five serious romances. Even five years before, in the Kootnai country, Jennings had been no matinee idol and Time had not been lenient.
He had bent knees, protuberant, that seemed to wobble. A horseman would have called him knee-sprung and declared he stumbled. His back was stooped so his outline was the letter S, and CARE was written in capitals on his corrugated brow. No railroad president with a strike on ever wore a heavier air of responsibility, though the suitcase which gave out an empty rattle contained James's earthly all. His teeth were yellow fangs and his complexion suggested a bad case of San José scale, but his distinctive feature was a long elastic upper lip which he had a habit of puffing out like a bear pouting in a trap. Yet James's physical imperfections had been no handicap, as was proved by the fact that he was paying alimony into two households and the bride on the horizon was contemplating matrimony with an enthusiasm equal to his own.
While Jennings breakfasted Bruce told him the purpose of his visit to the Pacific coast, hoping that out of the wide experience with machinery which Jennings claimed he might make some useful suggestions; besides Bruce found it a relief to talk the situation over with someone he had known.