Ridgway of Montana ...........................................................................................................................................1

William MacLeod Raine ..........................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER 1. TWO MEN AND A WOMAN .........................................................................................2

CHAPTER 2. THE FREEBOOTER ........................................................................................................9

CHAPTER 3. ONE TO ONE .................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER 4. TORT SALVATION ......................................................................................................17

CHAPTER 5. ENTER SIMON HARLEY............................................................................................23

CHAPTER 6. ON THE SNOWTRAIL ...............................................................................................28

CHAPTER 7. BACK FROM ARCADIA ..............................................................................................35

CHAPTER 8. THE HONORABLE THOMAS B. PELTON ................................................................39

CHAPTER 9. AN EVENING CALL....................................................................................................43

CHAPTER 10. HARLEY MAKES A PROPOSITION........................................................................48

CHAPTER 11. VIRGINIA INTERVENES..........................................................................................53

CHAPTER 12. ALINE MAKES A DISCOVERY ................................................................................60

CHAPTER 13. FIRST BLOOD .............................................................................................................64

CHAPTER 14. A CONSPIRACY.........................................................................................................69

CHAPTER 15. LASKA OPENS A DOOR...........................................................................................73

CHAPTER 16. AN EXPLOSION IN THE TAURUS..........................................................................78

CHAPTER 17. THE ELECTION ..........................................................................................................82

CHAPTER 18. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS...................................................................................84

CHAPTER 19. ONE MILLION DOLLARS .........................................................................................87

CHAPTER 20. A LITTLE LUNCH AT APHONSE'S.........................................................................89

CHAPTER 21. HARLEY SCORES ......................................................................................................93

CHAPTER 22. "NOT GUILTY""GUILTY"....................................................................................95

CHAPTER 23. ALINE TURNS A CORNER.......................................................................................99

CHAPTER 24. A GOOD SAMARITAN............................................................................................101

CHAPTER 25. FRIENDLY ENEMIES..............................................................................................107

CHAPTER 26. BREAKS ONE AND MAKES ANOTHER ENGAGEMENT ..................................110

The young woman who was giving the last touches to the very effective picture framed in her long

She had come to the parting of the ways, and she knew it, with a shrewd suspicion as to which she would

choose. She had asked for a week to decide, and her heartsearching had told her nothing new. It was

characteristic of Virginia Balfour that she did not attempt to deceive herself. If she married Waring Ridgway

it would be for what she considered good and sufficient reasons, but love would not be one of them. He was

going to be a great man, for one thing, and probably a very rich one, which counted, though it would not be a

determining factor. This she could find only in the man himself, in the masterful force that made him what he

was. The sandstings of life did not disturb his confidence in his victorious star, nor did he let finespun moral

obligations hamper his predatory career. He had a genius for success in whatever he undertook, pushing his

way to his end with a shrewd, direct energy that never faltered. She sometimes wondered whether she, too,

like the men he used as tools, was merely a pawn in his game, and her consent an empty formality conceded

to convention. Perhaps he would marry her even if she did not want to, she told herself, with the sudden

But Ridgway's wary eyes, appraising her mood as she came forward to meet him, read none of this doubt in

her frank greeting. Anything more sure and exquisite than the cultivation Virginia Balfour breathed he would

have been hard put to it to conceive. That her gown and its accessories seemed to him merely the extension of

a dainty personality was the highest compliment he could pay her charm, and an entirely unconscious one.

His answering smile, quite cool and unperturbed, gave the lie to his words. "For a year, though the almanac

"You must have suffered," she told him ironically, with a glance at the clear color in his goodlooking face.

"Repressed emotion," he explained. "May I hope that my suffering has reached a period?"

They had been sauntering toward a little conservatory at the end of the large room, but she deflected and

brought up at a table on which lay some books. One of these she picked up and looked at incuriously for a

moment before sweeping them aside. She rested her hands on the table behind her and leaned back against it,

She lifted herself to the table, crossing her feet and dangling them irresponsibly. "We might as well be comfy

She did not seem in any hurry to begin, and Ridgway gave evidence of no desire to hasten her. But presently

"I'm on the anxious seat, you knowwaiting to find out whether I'm to be the happiest man alive."

"You know as much about it as I do." She echoed his laugh ruefully. "I'm still as much at sea as I was last

"I don't want to marry you a bit, but you're a great catch, as you are very well aware."

"I suppose I am rather a catch," he agreed, the shadow of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

"It isn't only your money; though, of course, that's a temptation," she admitted audaciously.

"I'm glad it's not only my money." He could laugh with her about it because he was shrewd enough to

understand that it was not at all his wealth. Her cool frankness might have frightened away another man. It

merely served to interest Ridgway. For, with all his strength, he was a vain man, always ready to talk of

himself. He spent a good deal of his spare time interpreting himself to attractive and attracted young women.

Her gaze fastened on the tip of her suede toe, apparently studying it attentively. "It would be a gratification to

my vanity to parade you as the captive of my bow and spear. You're such a magnificent specimen, such a

berserk in broadcloth. Still. I shan't marry you if I can help itbut, then, I'm not sure that I can help it. Of

course, I disapprove of you entirely, but you're rather fascinating, you know." Her eye traveled slowly up to

his, appraising the masterful lines of his square figure, the dominant strength of his closeshut mouth and

resolute eyes. "Perhaps 'fascinating' isn't just the word, but I can't help being interested in you, whether I like

you or not. I suppose you always get what you want very badly?" she flung out by way of question.

"There are things to be considered both ways," she said, taking him into her confidence. "You trample on

"I shouldn't like that at all. If I married you it would be because as your wife I should have so many

opportunities. I should expect to do exactly as I please. I shouldn't want you to interfere with me, though I

"You see, I don't know younot reallyand they say all sorts of things about you."

She leaned forward, chin in hand and elbow on knee. It was a part of the accent of her distinction that as a

rebel she was both demure and daring. "I wonder if I might ask you some questionsthe intimate kind that

"It would be a pleasure to me to be put on the witnessstand. I should probably pick up some interesting

"Very well." Her eyes danced with excitement. "You're what they call a buccaneer of business, aren't you?"

Here were certainly diverting pastimes. "I believe I have been called that; but, then, I've had the hardest

"I suppose you are perfectly unscrupulous in a business waystop at nothing to gain your point?"

"'Unscrupulous' isn't the word I use when I explain myself to myself, but as an unflattered description, such

"Well, you see, Miss Balfour, if I nursed a New England conscience I could stand up to the attacks of the

Consolidated about as long as a dove to a hawk. I meet fire with fire to avoid being wiped off the map of the

mining world. I play the game. I can't afford to keep a button on my foil when my opponent doesn't."

She nodded an admission of his point. "And yet there are rules of the game to be observed, aren't there? The

Consolidated people claim you steal their ore, I believe." Her slanted eyes studied the effect of her daring.

He laughed grimly. "Do they? I claim they steal mine. It's rather difficult to have an exact regard for mine

"And meanwhile, in order to forestall an adverse decision, you are working extra shifts to get all the ore out

"Precisely, just as they are," he admitted dryly. "Then the side that loses will not be so disappointed, since the

value of the veins will be less. Besides, stealing ore openly doesn't count. It is really a moral obligation in a

"Exactly. You can't hit a trust over the head with the decalogue. Modern business is war. Somebody is bound

to get hurt. If I win out it will be because I put up a better fight than the Consolidated, and cripple it enough

to make it let me alone. I'm looking out for myself, and I don't pretend to be any better than my neighbors.

When you get down to bedrock honesty, I've never seen it in business. We're all of us as honest as we think

we can afford to be. I haven't noticed that there is any premium on it in Mesa. Might makes right. I'll win if

I'm strong enough; I'll fail if I'm not. That's the law of life. I didn't make this strenuous little world, and I'm

not responsible for it. If I play I have to take the rules the way they are, not the way I should like them to be.

I'm not squeamish, and I'm not a hypocrite. Simon Harley isn't squeamish, either, but he happens to be a

The president of the Mesa Oreproducing Company set forth his creed jauntily, without the least

consciousness of need for apology for the fact that it happened to be divorced from morality. Its frank

disregard of ethical considerations startled Miss Balfour without shocking her. She liked his candor, even

though it condemned him. It was really very nice of him to take her impudence so well. He certainly wasn't a

"hasn't a thing to do with success, the parsons to the contrary notwithstanding. The battle is to the strong."

He smiled. "They would if I'd let them; but brains and resource and finesse all count for power. Granted that

they have a hundred dollars to my one. Still, I have elements of strength they can't even estimate. David beat

"Not quite. Some men aren't big enough to be. Let them stick to the conventional code. For me, if I make my

"I should like to know whether it is true that you own the courts of Yuba County and have the decisions of

the judges written at your lawyer's offices in cases between you and the Consolidated."

"If I do," he answered easily, "I am doing just what the Consolidated would do in case they had been so

fortunate as to have won the last election and seated their judicial candidates. One expects a friendly leaning

"Isn't the judiciary supposed to be the final, incorruptible bulwark of the nation?" she pretended to want to

"That's a comfortable position to be able to take." She fixed him for a moment with her charming frown of

interrogation. "You won't mind my asking these questions? I'm trying to decide whether you are too much of

a pirate for me. Perhaps when I've made up my mind you won't want me," she added.

"Oh, I'll want you!" Then coolly: "Shall we wait till you make up your mind before announcing the

"Of course, you're laughing at me, just as you would"she tilted a sudden sideways glance at him"if I

She interrupted airily. "I'm trying to make up my mind whether to take you at all."

He studied appreciatively her piquant, tilted face; the long, graceful lines of her slender, perfect figure. "I take

it you don't want the sentimental reason for my wishing to marry you, though I find that amply justified. But

if you want another, you must still look to yourself for it. My business leads me to appreciate values

correctly. When I desire you to sit at the head of my table, to order my house, my judgment justifies itself. I

"Thank you." She made him a gay little mock curtsy "I had heard you were no carpetknight, Mr. Ridgway.

But rumor is a lying jade, for I am being toldam I not?that in case I don't take pity on you, the lone

Having come to the end of that passage, she tried another. "A young man told me yesterday you were a

Ridgway was an egoist from head to heel. He could voice his own praises by the hour when necessary, but

Had he known her and her whimsies less well, he might have taken her audacity for innocence.

"When a fellow's attacked by a gang of thugs he doesn't pray for boxinggloves. He lets fly with a

Her eyes, glinting sparks of mischief, marveled at him with mock reverence, but she knew in her heart that

her mockery was a fraud. She did admire him; admired him even while she disapproved the magnificent

For Waring Ridgway looked every inch the indomitable fighter he was. He stood six feet to the line, straight

and strong, carrying just sufficient bulk to temper his restless energy without impairing its power. Nor did the

face offer any shock of disappointment to the promise given by the splendid figure. Salientjawed and

forceful, set with cool, flinty, bluegray eyes, no place for weakness could be found there. One might have

read a moral callousness, a colorblindness in points of rectitude, but when the last word had been said, its

"Am I out of the witnessbox?" he presently asked, still leaning against the mantel from which he had been

"Oh, a question of definitions. I could make a very good case for myself as an honest man."

"You're so fond of me, I suppose, that you couldn't bear to have me think too well of you."

She drummed with her pink fingertips on her chin, studying him meditatively. To do him justice, she had to

admit that he did not even pretend much. He wanted her because she was a step up in the social ladder, and,

in his opinion, the most attractive girl he knew. That he was not in love with her relieved the situation, as

Miss Balfour admitted to herself in impersonal moods. But there were times when she could have wished he

were. She felt it to be really due her attractions that his pulses should quicken for her, and in the interests of

experience she would have liked to see how he would make love if he really meant it from the heart and not

"No." She looked up brightly, with an effect of impulsiveness. "I don't suppose you want to give me another

"So you won't give me a week?" she sighed. "All sorts of things might have happened in that week. I shall

"Oh, I didn't mean a prince of pirates, though there is a triumph in having tamed a pirate chief to prosaic

matrimony. In one way it will be a pity, too. You won't be half so picturesque. You remember how Stevenson

puts it: 'that marriage takes from a man the capacity for great things, whether good or bad.'"

"Domesticating a pirate ought to be an interesting process," she conceded, her rare smile flashing. "It should

His big hand gripped hers till it tingled. She caught his eye on a roving quest to the door.

The butler, with a card on a tray, interrupted silently. She glanced at the card, devoutly grateful his impassive

"The fairy prince, five minutes too late?" asked Ridgway, when the man had gone.

For answer she handed him the card, yet he thought the pink that flushed her cheek was something more

pronounced than usual. But he was willing to admit there might be a choice of reasons for that.

"I think the Consolidated is going to have its innings. I should like to stay, of course, but I fear I must plead a

Pronouncing "Mr. Hobart" without emphasis, the butler vanished. The newcomer came forward with the

quiet assurance of the born aristocrat. He was a slender, wellknit man, dressed fastidiously, with clearcut,

classical features; cool, keen eyes, and a gentle, youbedamned manner to his inferiors. Beside him

Ridgway bulked too large, too florid. His ease seemed a little obvious, his prosperity overemphasized. Even

his voice, strong and reliant, lacked the tone of gentle blood that Hobart had inherited with his nice taste.

When Miss Balfour said: "I think you know each other," the manager of the Consolidated bowed with stiff

formality, but his rival laughed genially and said: "Oh, yes, I know Mr. Hobart." The geniality was genuine

enough, but through it ran a note of contempt. Hobart read in it a veiled taunt. To him it seemed to say

"Yes, I have met him, and beaten him at every turn of the road, though he has been backed by a power with

In his parting excuses to Miss Balfour, Ridgway's audacity crystallized in words that Hobart could only

regard as a shameless challenge. "I regret that an appointment with Judge Purcell necessitates my leaving

Purcell was the judge before whom was pending a suit between the Consolidated and the Mesa

Oreproducing Company, to determine the ownership of the Never Say Die Mine; and it was current report

that Ridgway owned him as absolutely as he did the automobile waiting for him now at the door.

If Ridgway expected his opponent to pay his flippant gibe the honor of repartee, he was disappointed. To be

sure, Hobart, admirably erect in his slender grace, was moved to a slight, disdainful smile, but it evidenced

scarcely the appreciation that anybody less impervious to criticism than Ridgway would have cared to see.

When next Virginia Balfour saw Waring Ridgway she was driving her trap down one of the hitormiss

streets of Mesa, where derricks, shafthouses, and gray slagdumps shoulder ornate mansions conglomerate

of many unharmonious details of architecture. To Miss Balfour these composites and their owners would

have been joys unalloyed except for the microbe of society ambition that was infecting the latter, and

transforming them from simple, robust, selfreliant Westerners into a class of servile, nondescript newly rich,

that resembled their unfettered selves as much as tame bears do the grizzlies of their own Rockies. As she had

once complained smilingly to Hobart, she had not come to the West to study ragged edges of the social

Virginia was still a block or two from the courthouse on the hill, when it emptied into the street a concourse

of excited men. That this was an occasion of some sort it was easy to guess, and of what sort she began to

have an inkling, when Ridgway came out, the center of a circle of congratulating admirers. She was obliged

to admit that he accepted their applause without in the least losing his head. Indeed, he took it as

imperturbably as did Hobart, against whom a wave of the enthusiasm seemed to be directed in the form of a

jeer, when he passed down the steps with Mott, one of the Consolidated lawyers. Miss Balfour timed her

"Judge Purcell has just decided the Never Say Die case in favor of Mr. Ridgway and against the

"Yes, it's a victory, though, of course, we appeal," admitted Hobart. "But we can't say we didn't expect it," he

"Mayn't I give you a lift if you are going downtown?" she said quickly, for Ridgway, having detached

himself from the group, was working toward her, and she felt an instinctive sympathy for the man who had

lost. Furthermore, she had something she wanted to tell him before he heard it on the tongue of rumor.

"Congratulate me, Miss Balfour," demanded Ridgway, as he shook hands with her, nodding coolly at her

companion. "I'm a million dollars richer than I was an hour ago. I have met the enemy and he is mine."

Virginia, resenting the bad taste of his jeer at the man who sat beside her, misunderstood him promptly. "Did

"Thank you very much for this unsolicited testimonial," she said gravely. "In the meantime, to avoid a

congestion of traffic, we'll be moving, if you will kindly give me back my front left wheel."

He did not lift his foot from the spoke on which it rested. "My congratulations," he reminded her.

"I wish you all the joy in your victory that you deserve, and I hope the supreme court will reaffirm the

decision of Judge Purcell, if it is a just one," was the form in which she acceded to his demand.

She flicked her whip, and Ridgway fell back, laughing. "You've been subsidized by the Consolidated," he

Hobart watched silently the businesslike directness with which the girl handled the ribbons. She looked every

inch the thoroughbred in her wellmade covert coat and dainty driving gauntlets. The grace of the alert,

slender figure, the perfect poise of the beautiful little tawny head, proclaimed her distinction no less certainly

than the fine modeling of the mobile face. It was a distinction that stirred the pulse of his emotion and

disarmed his keen, critical sense. Ridgway could study her with an amused, detached interest, but Hobart's

admiration had traveled past that point. He found it as impossible to define her charm as to evade it. Her

inheritance of blood and her environment should have made her a finished product of civilization, but her

salty breeziness, her nerve, vivid as a flame at times, disturbed delightfully the poise that held her when in

"I suppose you would. Everybody in Mesa seems to have taken sides either with Mr. Ridgway or the

Consolidated. Still, you have an option. Is he what his friends proclaim himthe generoushearted

independent fighting against trust domination? Or is he merely an audacious orethief, as his enemies say?

"It seems to lie mostly in point of view here the angle of observation being determined by interest," he

"He is the most unusual man I ever saw, the most resourceful and the most competent. He never knows when

he is beaten. I suppose that's the reason he never is beaten finally. We have driven him to the wall a score of

times. My experience with him is that he's most dangerous when one thinks he must be about hammered out.

"Metaphorically speaking. He reaches for the first effective weapon to his hand."

"You haven't quite answered my question yet," she reminded him. "Is he what his friends or what his enemies

"Thank you. Then I'll say that perhaps he is neither just what his friends or his foes think him. One must

make allowances for his training and temperament, and for that quality of bigness in him. 'Mediocre men go

soberly on the highroads, but saints and scoundrels meet in the jails,'" he smilingly quoted.

She liked it in him that he would not use the opportunity she had made to sneer at his adversary, none the less

because she knew that Ridgway might not have been so scrupulous in his place. That Lyndon Hobart's

fastidious instincts for fair play had stood in the way of his success in the fight to down Ridgway she had

repeatedly heard. Of late, rumors had persisted in reporting dissatisfaction with his management of the

Consolidated at the great financial center on Broadway which controlled the big copper company. Simon

Harley, the dominating factor in the octopus whose tentacles reached out in every direction to monopolize the

avenues of wealth, demanded of his subordinates results. Methods were no concern of his, and failure could

not be explained to him. He wanted Ridgway crushed, and the pulse of the copper production regulated lay

the Consolidated. Instead, he had seen Ridgway rise steadily to power and wealth despite his efforts to wipe

him off the slate. Hobart was perfectly aware that his head was likely to fall when Harley heard of Purcell's

"He certainly is an amazing man," Virginia mused, her fiancee in mind. "It would be interesting to discover

what he can't doalong utilitarian lines, I mean. Is he as good a miner underground as he is in the courts?"

"He is the shrewdest investor I know. Time and again he has leased or bought apparently worthless claims,

and made them pay inside of a few weeks. Take the Taurus as a case in point. He struck rich ore in a

"I'm naturally interested in knowing all about him, because I have just become engaged to him," explained

Miss Virginia, as calmly as if her pulse were not fluttering a hundred to the minute

Virginia was essentially a sportsman. She did not flinch from the guns when the firing was heavy. It had been

remarked of her even as a child that she liked to get unpleasant things over with as soon as possible, rather

than postpone them. Once, _aetat_ eight, she had marched in to her mother like a stoic and announced: "I've

come to be whipped, momsie, 'cause I broke that horrid little Nellie Vaile's doll. I did it on purpose, 'cause I

Hobart paled slightly beneath his outdoors Western tan, but his eyes met hers very steadily and fairly. "I wish

"Take him by and large, Mr. Ridgway is the most capable, energetic, and farsighted business man I have

ever known. He has a bigger grasp of things than almost any financier in the country. I think you'll find he

will go far," he said, choosing his words with care to say as much for Waring Ridgway as he honestly could.

She had reason for thinking so in that young man's remarkable career. When Waring Ridgway had first come

to Mesa he had been a draftsman for the Consolidated at five dollars a day. He was just out of Cornell, and

his assets consisted mainly of a supreme confidence in himself and an imposing presence. He was a born

leader, and he flung himself into the raw, turbid life of the mining town with a readiness that had not a little

That success began to take tangible form almost from the first. A small, independent smelter that had for long

been working at a loss was about to fall into the hands of the Consolidated when Ridgway bought it on

promises to pay, made good by raising money on a flying trip he took to the East. His father died about this

time and left him fifty thousand dollars, with which he bought the Taurus, a mine in which several

adventurous spirits had dropped small fortunes. He acquired other properties; a lease here, an interest there. It

began to be observed that he bought always with judgment. He seemed to have the touch of Midas. Where

When the officers of the Consolidated woke up to the menace of his presence, one of their lawyers called on

him. The agent of the Consolidated smiled at his luxurious offices, which looked more like a woman's

boudoir than the business place of a Western miner. But that was merely part of Ridgway's vanity, and did

not in the least interfere with his predatory instincts. Many people who walked into that parlor to do business

The lawyer had been ready to patronize the upstart who had ventured so boldly into the territory of the great

trust, but one glance at the clearcut resolute face of the young man changed his mind.

"I've come to make you an offer for your smelter, Mr. Ridgway," he began. "We'll take it off your hands at

"You forget that I own a few properties, and have leases on others. When the Taurus begins producing, I'll

"When the Taurus begins producing?"Bartel smiled skeptically. "Didn't Johnson and Leroy drop fortunes

"Chimerical!" pronounced the graybeard as he rose to go, with an air of finality. "Better sell the smelter while

At the door the lawyer turned. "Oh, there's another matter! It had slipped my mind." He spoke with rather

elaborate carelessness. "It seems that there is a little triangleabout ten and four feet acrosswedged in

between the Mary K, the Diamond King, and the Marcus Daly. For some reason we accidentally omitted to

file on it. Our chief engineer finds that you have taken it up, Mr. Ridgway. It is really of no value, but it is in

the heart of our properties, and so it ought to belong to us. Of course, it is of no use to you. There isn't any

possible room to sink a shaft. We'll take it from you if you like, and even pay you a nominal price. For what

"Not a cent less. I call it the Trust Buster. Before I'm through, you'll find it is worth that to me."

The lawyer reported him demented to the Consolidated officials, who declared war on him from that day.

They found the young adventurer more than prepared for them. If he had a Napoleonic sense of big vital

factors, he had no less a genius for detail. He had already picked up an intimate knowledge of the hundreds of

veins and crossveins that traverse the Mesa copperfields, and he had delved patiently into the tangled

history of the litigation that the defective mining laws in pioneer days had made possible. When the

Consolidated attempted to harass him by legal process, he countered by instituting a score of suits against the

company within the week. These had to do with wills, insanity cases, extra lateral rights, mine titles, and land

and water rights. Wherever Ridgway saw room for an entering wedge to dispute the title of the Consolidated,

he drove a new suit home. To say the least, the trust found it annoying to be enjoined from working its mines,

to be cited for contempt before judges employed in the interests of its opponent, to be served with restraining

orders when clearly within its rights. But when these adverse legal decisions began to affect vital issues, the

Consolidated looked for reasons why Ridgway should control the courts. It found them in politics.

For Ridgway was already dominating the politics of Yuba County, displaying an amazing acumen and a

surprising ability as a stumpspeaker. He posed as a friend of the people, an enemy of the trust. He declared an

eighthour day for his own miners, and called upon the Consolidated to do the same. Hobart refused, acting

on orders from Broadway, and fifteen thousand Consolidated miners went to the polls and reelected

Ridgway's corrupt judges, in spite of the fight the Consolidated was making against them.

Meanwhile, Ridgway's colossal audacity made the Consolidated's copper pay for the litigation with which he

was harassing it. In following his oreveins, or what he claimed to be his veins, he crossed boldly into the

territory of the enemy. By the law of extra lateral rights, a man is entitled to mine within the lines of other

property than his own, provided he is following the dip of a vein which has its apex in his claim. Ridgway's

experts were prepared to swear that all the best veins in the field apexed in his property. Pending decisions of

the courts, they assumed it, tunneling through granite till they tapped the veins of the Consolidated mines,

meanwhile enjoining that company from working the very ore of which Ridgway was robbing it.

Many times the great trust back of the Consolidated had him close to ruin, but Ridgway's alert brain and

supreme audacity carried him through. From their mines or from his own he always succeeded in extracting

enough ore to meet his obligations when they fell due. His powerful enemy, as Hobart had told Miss Balfour,

found him most dangerous when it seemed to have him with his back to the wall. Then unexpectedly would

fall some crushing blow that put the financial kings of Broadway on the defensive long enough for him to slip

out of the corner into which they had driven him. Greatly daring, he had the successful cavalryman's instinct

of risking much to gain much. A gambler, his enemies characterized him fitly enough. But it was also true, as

Mesa phrased it, that he gambled "with the lid off," playing for large stakes, neither asking nor giving quarter.

At the end of five years of desperate fighting, the freebooter was more strongly entrenched than he had been

at any previous time. The railroads, pledged to give rebates to the Consolidated, had been forced by Ridgway,

under menace of adverse legislation from the men he controlled at the Statehouse, to give him secretly a still

better rate than the trust. He owned the county courts, he was supported by the people, and had become a

Such were the conditions when Judge Purcell handed down his Never Say Die decision. Within an hour

Hobart was reading a telegram in cipher from the Broadway headquarters. It announced the immediate

departure for Mesa of the great leader of the octopus. Simon Harley, the Napoleon of finance, was coming

out to attend personally to the destruction of the buccaneer who had dared to fire on the trust flag.

Before night some one of his corps of spies in the employ of the enemy carried the news to Waring Ridgway.

He smiled grimly, his bluegray eyes hardening to the temper of steel. Here at last was a foeman worthy of his

metal; one as lawless, unscrupulous, daring, and farseeing as himself, with a hundred times his resources.

The solitary rider stood for a moment in silhouette against the somber skyline, his keen eyes searching the

"Getting its back up for a blizzard," he muttered to himself, as he touched his pony with the spur.

Dark, heavy billows banked in the west, piling over each other as they drove forward. Already the

advanceguard had swept the sunlight from the earth, except for a flutter of it that still protested near the

horizon. Scattering snowflakes were flying, and even in a few minutes the temperature had fallen many

The rider knew the signs of old. He recognized the sudden stealthy approach that transformed a

sundrenched, friendly plain into an unknown arctic waste. Not for nothing had he been last year one of a

searchparty to find the bodies of three miners frozen to death not fifty yards from their own cabin. He

understood perfectly what it meant to be caught away from shelter when the driven white pall wiped out

distance and direction; made long familiar landmarks strange, and numbed the will to a helpless surrender.

The knowledge of it was spur enough to make him ride fast while he still retained the sense of direction.

But silently, steadily, the storm increased, and he was forced to slacken his pace. As the blinding snow grew

thick, the sound of the wind deadened, unable to penetrate the dense white wall through which he forced his

way. The world narrowed to a space whose boundaries he could touch with his extended hands. In this white

mystery that wrapped him, nothing was left but stinging snow, bitter cold, and the silence of the dead.

So he thought one moment, and the next was almost flung by his swerving horse into a vehicle that blocked

the road. Its blurred outlines presently resolved themselves into an automobile, crouched in the bottom of

He shouted, forgetting that no voice could carry through the muffled scream of the storm. When he got no

answer, he guided his horse close to the machine and reached down to snatch away the rug already heavy

with snow. To his surprise, it was a girl's despairing face that looked up at him. She tried to rise, but fell back,

"Yes. He went for help when the machine broke downbefore the storm," she sobbed. He had to put his ear

"Come, keep up your heart." There was that in his voice pealed like a trumpetcall to her courage.

She was exhausted and benumbed, her lips blue, her flesh gray. It was plain to him that she had reached the

limit of endurance, that she was ready to sink into the last torpor. He ripped open his overcoat and shook the

snow from it, then gathered her close so that she might get the warmth of his body. The rugs from the

But his own courage was of the heart and will, not of the head. He had small hope of reaching the hut at the

entrance of Dead Man's Gulch or, if he could struggle so far, of finding it in the white swirl that clutched at

them. Near and far are words not coined for a blizzard. He might stagger past with safety only a dozen feet

from him. He might lie down and die at the very threshold of the door. Or he might wander in an opposite

Yet it was not in the man to give up. He must stagger on till he could no longer stand. He must fight so long

as life was in him. He must crawl forward, though his forlorn hope had vanished. And he did. When the

wornout horse slipped down and could not be coaxed to its feet again, he picked up the bundle of rugs and

plowed forward blindly, soul and body racked, but teeth still set fast with the primal instinct never to give up.

The intense cold of the air, thick with gray sifted ice, searched the warmth from his body and sapped his

vitality. His numbed legs doubled under him like springs. He was down and up again a dozen times, but

That he did find the safety of the cabin in the end was due to no wisdom on his part. He had followed

unconsciously the dip of the ground that led him into the little draw where it had been built, and by sheer luck

stumbled against it. His strength was gone, but the door gave to his weight, and he buckled across the

threshold like a man helpless with drink. He dropped to the floor, ready to sink into a stupor, but he shook

sleep from him and dragged himself to his feet. Presently his numb fingers found a match, a newspaper, and

some wood. As soon as he had control over his hands, he fell to chafing hers. He slipped off her dainty shoes,

pathetically inadequate for such an experience, and rubbed her feet back to feeling. She had been torpid, but

Every inch of her bore the hallmark of wealth. The erminelined motoringcloak, the broadcloth cut on

simple lines of elegance, the quality of her lingerie and of the hosiery which incased the wonderfully small

feet, all told of a padded existence from which the cares of life had been excluded. The satin flesh he

massaged, to renew the flow of the dammed blood, was soft and tender like a babe's. Quite surely she was an

exotic, the last woman in the world fitted for the hardships of this frontier country. She had none of the

deepbreasted vitality of those of her sex who have fought with grim nature and won. His experience told

him that a very little longer in the storm would have snuffed out the wick of her life.

But he knew, too, that the danger was past. Faint tints of pink were beginning to warm the cheeks that had

been so deathly pallid. Already crimson lips were offering a vivid contrast to the still, almost colorless face.

For she was biting the little lips to try and keep back the cries of pain that returning life wrung from her. Big

tears coursed down her cheeks, and broken sobs caught her breath. She was helpless as an infant before the

"I can't stand itI can't stand it," she moaned, and in her distress stretched out her little hand for relief as a

The childlike appeal of the flinching violet eyes in the tortured face moved him strangely. He was accounted

a hard man, not without reason. His eyes were those of a gambler, cold and vigilant. It was said that he could

follow an undeviating course without relenting at the ruin and misery wrought upon others by his operations.

But the helpless loveliness of this exquisitely dainty childwoman, the sense of intimacy bred of a common

peril endured, of the strangeness of their environment and of her utter dependence upon him, carried the man

He stooped and gathered her into his arms, walking the floor with her and cheering her as if she had indeed

"You don't know how it hurts," she pleaded between sobs, looking up into the strong face so close to hers.

"I know it must, dear. But soon it will be better. Every twinge is one less, and shows that you are getting well.

She smiled wanly through her tears. "But I'm not brave. I'm a little cowardand it does pain so."

"You're good to me," she said presently, simply as a little girl might have said it.

To neither of them did it seem strange that she should be there in his arms, her fair head against his shoulder,

nor that she should cling convulsively to him when the fierce pain tingled unbearably. She had reached out

Presently the prickling of the flowing blood grew less sharp. She began to grow drowsy with warmth after the

fatigue and pain. The big eyes shut, fluttered open, smiled at him, and again closed. She had fallen asleep

He looked down with an odd queer feeling at the small aristocratic face relaxed upon his ann. The long lashes

had drooped to the cheeks and shuttered the eyes that had met his with such confident appeal, but they did not

hide the dark rings underneath, born of the hardships she had endured. As he walked the floor with her, he

lived once more the terrible struggle through which they had passed. He saw Death stretching out icy hands

for her, and as his arms unconsciously tightened about the soft rounded body, his square jaw set and the

Troubled dreams pursued her in her sleep. She clung close to him, her arm creeping round his neck for safety.

He was a man not given to fine scruples, but all the best in him responded to her unconscious trust.

It was so she found herself when she awakened, stiff from her cramped position. She slipped at once to the

floor and sat there drying her lace skirts, the sweet piquancy of her childish face set out by the leaping

fireglow that lit and shadowed her delicate coloring. Outside in the gray darkness raged the death from

which he had snatched her by a miracle. Beyonda million miles awaythe world whose claim had

loosened on them was going through its routine of lies and love, of hypocrisies and heroisms. But here were

just they two, flung back to the primordial type by the fierce battle for existence that had encompassed

themAdam and Eve in the garden, one to one, all else forgot, all other ties and obligations for the moment

obliterated. Had they not struggled, heart beating against heart, with the breath of death icing them, and come

out alive? Was their world not contracted to a space ten feet by twelve, shut in from every other planet by an

"Where should I have been if you had not found me?" she murmured, her haunting eyes fixed on the flames.

"But I should have found youno matter where you had been, I should have found you."

The words seemed to leap from him of themselves. He was sure he had not meant to speak them, to voice so

She considered his words and found delight in acquiescing at once. The unconscious demand for life, for

love, of her starved soul had never been gratified. But he had come to her through that fearful valley of death,

The far, wise voices of the world were stormdeadened. They cried no warning to these drifting hearts. How

should they know in that moment when their souls reached toward each other that the wisdom of the ages had

She must have fallen asleep there, for when she opened her eyes it was day. Underneath her was a lot of

bedding he had found in the cabin, and tucked about her were the automobile rugs. For a moment her brain,

still sodden with sleep, struggled helplessly with her surroundings. She looked at the smoky rafters without

understanding, and her eyes searched the cabin wonderingly for her maid. When she remembered, her first

thought was to look for the man. That he had gone, she saw with instinctive terror.

But not without leaving a message. She found his penciled note, weighted for security by a dollar, at the edge

"Gone on a foraging expedition. Back in an hour, Little Partner," was all it said. The other man also had

promised to be back in an hour, and he had not come, but the strong chirography of the note, recalling the

resolute strength of this man's face, brought content to her eyes. He had said he would come back. She rested

She went to the window and looked out over the great white wastes that rose tier on tier to the dull skyline.

She shuddered at the arctic desolation of the vast snowfields. The mountains were sheeted with silence and

purity. It seemed to the untaught childwoman that she was face to face with the Almighty.

Once during the night she had partially awakened to hear the roaring wind as it buffeted snowclouds across

the range. It had come tearing along the divide with the black storm in its vanguard, and she had heard

fearfully the shrieks and screams of the battle as it raged up and down the gulches and sifted into them the

Halfasleep as she was, she had been afraid and had cried out with terror at this strange wakening; and he

"It's all right, partner. There's nothing to be afraid of," he had said cheerfully, taking her little hand in his big

Her fears had slipped away at once. Nestling down into her rug, she had smiled sleepily at him and fallen

While she had been asleep the snowtides had filled the gulch, had risen level with the top of the lower pane

of the window. Nothing broke the smoothness of its flow save the one track he had made in breaking a way

out. That he should have tried to find his way through such an untracked desolation amazed her. He could

never do it. No puny human atom could fight successfully against the barriers nature had dropped so sullenly

to fence them. They were set off from the world by a quarantine of God. There was something awful to her in

the knowledge. It emphasized their impotence. Yet, this man had set himself to fight the inevitable.

With a little shudder she turned from the window to the cheerless room. The floor was dirty; unwashed dishes

were piled upon the table. Here and there were scattered muddy boots and overalls, just as their owner, the

prospector, had left them before he had gone to the nearest town to restock his exhausted supply of

provisions. Disorder and dirt filled the rough cabin, or so it seemed to her fastidious eye.

The inspiration of the housewife seized her. She would surprise him on his return by opening the door to him

upon a house swept and garnished. She would show him that she could be of some use even in such a

First, she carried red live coals on a shovel from the fireplace to the cookstove, and piled kindling upon

them till it lighted. It was a new experience to her. She knew nothing of housework; had never lit a fire in her

life, except once when she had been one of a camping party. The smoke choked her before she had the lids

back in their places, but despite her awkwardness, the girl went about her unaccustomed tasks with a light

heart. It was for her newfound hero that she played at housekeeping. For his commendation she filled the

teakettle, enveloped herself in a cloud of dust as she wielded the stub of a broom she discovered, and

washed the greasy dishes after the water was hot. A childish pleasure suffused her. All her life her least

whims had been ministered to; she was reveling in a first attempt at service. As she moved to and fro with an

improvised dustrag, sunshine filled her being. From her lips the joy notes fell in song, shaken from her

throat for sheer happiness. This surely was life, that life from which she had so carefully been hedged all the

As he came down the trail he had broken, with a pack on his back, the man heard her birdlike carol in the

clear frosty air. He emptied his chest in a deep shout, and she was instantly at the window, waving him a

"I thought you were never coming," she cried from the open door as he came up the path.

Her eyes were starry in their eagerness. Every sensitive feature was alert with interest, so that the man

He was glowing with exercise and the sting of the cold, for he had tramped two miles through drifts from

three to five feet deep, battling with them every step of the way, and carrying with him on the return trip a

"With all that snow on you and the pack on your back, it's like Santa Claus," she cried, clapping her hands.

"Before we're through with the adventure we may think that box a sure enough gift from Santa," he replied.

After he had put it down, he took off his overcoat on the threshold and shook the snow from it. Then, with

much feet stamping and scattering of snow, he came in. She fluttered about him, dragging a chair up to the

fire for him, and taking his hat and gloves. It amused and pleased him that she should be so solicitous, and he

His quick eye noticed the swept floor and the evanishment of disorder. "Hello! What's this clean through a

fall housecleaning? I'm not the only member of the firm that has been working. Dishes washed, floor swept,

bed made, kitchen fire lit. You've certainly been going some, unless the fairies helped you. Aren't you afraid

of blistering these little hands?" he asked gaily, taking one of them in his and touching the soft palm gently

"I should preserve those blisters in alcohol to show that I've really been of some use," she answered, happy in

"Sho! People are made for different uses. Some are fit only to shovel and dig. Others are here simply to

decorate the world. Hard world. Hard work is for those who can't give society anything else, but beauty is its

"Now that's the first compliment you have given me," she pouted prettily. "I can get them in plenty back in

the drawingrooms where I am supposed to belong. We're to be real comrades here, and compliments are

"I wasn't complimenting you," he maintained. "I was merely stating a principle of art."

"Then you mustn't make your principles of art personal, sir. But since you have, I'm going to refute the

application of your principle and show how useful I've been. Now, sir, do you know what provisions we have

He knew exactly, since he had investigated during the night. That they might possibly have to endure a siege

of some weeks, he was quite well aware, and his first thought, after she had gone to sleep before the fire, had

been to make inventory of such provisions as the prospector had left in his cabin. A knuckle of ham, part of a

sack of flour, some navy beans, and some tea siftings at the bottom of a tin can; these constituted the contents

of the larder which the miner had gone to replenish. But though the man knew he assumed ignorance, for he

"Tell me," he begged of her, and after she had done so, he marveled aloud over her wisdom in thinking of it.

"Now tell me about your trip," she commanded, setting herself tailor fashion on the rug to listen.

"There isn't much to tell," he smiled "I should like to make an adventure of it, but I can't. I just went and

"Oh, you just went and came back, did you?" she scoffed. "That won't do at all. I want to know all about it.

"I found it where we left it, buried in four feet of snow. You needn't be afraid that anybody will run away

with it for a day or two. The pantry was cached pretty deep itself, but I dug it out."

Her shy glance admired the sturdy lines of his powerful frame. "I am afraid it must have been a terrible task

"Oh, the blizzard is past. You never saw a finer, more bracing morning. It's a day for the gods," he laughed

She could have conceived no Olympian more heroic than he, and certainly none with so compelling a vitality.

"Such a warm, kind light in them!" she thought of the eyes others had found hard and calculating.

It was lucky that the lunch the automobilists had brought from Avalanche was ample and as yet untouched.

The hotel waiter, who had attended to the packing of it, had fortunately been used to reckon with outdoor

Montana appetites instead of cloyed New York ones. They unpacked the little hamper with much gaiety.

"Shipped right through on our private refrigeratorcar. That coldstorage chicken looks the finest that ever

happened. What's this rolled up in tissuepaper? Deviled eggs and ham sandwiches AND caviar, not to speak

of claret frappe. I'm certainly grateful to the gentleman finished in ebony who helped to provision us for this

"Not to mention peaches and pears. Oh, this is luck of a special brand! I was expecting to put up at Starvation

"Or Fort Salvation," she suggested shyly. "Because you brought me here to save my life."

She was such a child, in spite of her charming grownup airs, that he played makebelieve with a zest that

surprised himself when he came to think of it. She elected him captain of Fort Salvation, with full power of

life and death over the garrison, and he appointed her second in command. His first general order was to put

She clapped her little hands, eyes sparkling with excitement. "Are we really snowbound? Must we go on

"It is the part of wisdom, lieutenant," he answered, smiling at her enthusiasm. "We don't know how long this

siege is going to last. If it should set in to snow, we may be here several days before the reliefparty reaches

us." But, though he spoke cheerfully, he was aware of sinister possibilities in the situation. "Several weeks"

They ate breakfast at the shelftable nailed in place underneath the western window. They made a picnic of

it, and her spirits skipped upon the hilltops. For the first time she ate from tin plates, drank from a tin cup, and

used a tin spoon the worse for rust. What mattered it to her that the teapot was grimy and the fryingpan black

with soot! It was all part of the wonderful new vista that had suddenly opened before her gaze. She had

awakened into life and already she was dimly realizing that many and varied experiences lay waiting for her

A reconnaissance in the shed behind the house showed him no plethora of firewood. But here was ax, shovel,

and saw, and he asked no more. First he shoveled out a path along the eaves of the house where she might

walk in sentry fashion to take the deep breaths of clear sharp air he insisted upon. He made it wide enough so

that her skirt would not sweep against the snowbank, and trod down the trench till the footing was hard and

solid. Then with ax and saw he climbed the hillside back of the house and set himself to get as much fuel as

he could. The sky was still heavy with unshed snow, and he knew that with the coming of night the storm

Came noon, midafternoon, the early dusk of a mountain winter, and found him still hewing and sawing, still

piling load after load in the shed. Now and again she came out and watched him, laughing at the figure he

She did not know, as he did, the vital necessity of filling the leanto before winter fell upon them in earnest

and buried them deep with his frozen blanket, and she was a little piqued that he should spend the whole day

"Let me help," she begged so often that he trod down a path, made boots for her out of torn gunnysacks

which he tied round her legs, and let her drag wood to the house on a pine branch which served for a sled.

She wore her gauntlets to protect her tender hands, and thereafter was happy until, detecting signs of fatigue,

As soon as she dared she was back again, making fun of him and the earnestness with which he worked.

"Robinson Crusoe" was one name she fastened upon him, and she was not satisfied till she had made him call

Twilight fell austere and sudden upon them with an immediate fall of temperature that found a thermometer

This would not do at all. The chill wind sweeping down the canon was searching her insufficient clothing

already. He picked her up in his arms and ran with her toward the house, setting her down in the trench

outside the door. She caught her startled breath and looked at him in shy, dubious amazement.

"Commanding officer's orders, lieutenant," came briskly from lips that showed just a hint of a smile.

From the grimy window she watched his broadshouldered vigor, waving her hand whenever his face was

turned her way. He worked like a Titan, reveling in the joy of physical labor, but it was long past dark before

They made a delightful evening of it, living in the land of Never Was. For one source of her charm lay in the

gay, childlike whimsicality o her imagination. She believed in fairies and heroes with all her heart, which

with her was an organ not located in her brain. The delicious gurgle of gaiety in her laugh was a new find to

There had been many who thought the career of this pirate of industry beggared fiction, though, few had

found his flinty personality a radiaton of romance. But this conventnurtured child had made a discovery in

men, one out of the rut of the tailormade, conventionbound society youths to whom her experience for the

most part had been limited. She delighted in his masterful strength, in the confidence of his careless

dominance. She liked to see that look of power in his grayblue eyes softened to the droll, halftender,

expression with which he played the game of makebelieve. There were no tomorrows; today marked the

limit of time for them. By tacit consent they lived only in the present, shutting out deliberately from their

knowledge of each other, that past which was not common to both. Even their names were unknown to each

The long winter evening had fallen early, and they dined by candlelight, considering merrily how much they

might with safety eat and yet leave enough for the tomorrows that lay before them. Afterward they sat

before the fire, in the shadow and shine of the flickering logs, happy and content in each other's presence. She

dreamed, and he, watching her, dreamed, too. The wild, sweet wonder of life surged through them, touching

The strangeness of it was that he was a man of large and not very creditable experience of women, yet her

deep, limpid eyes, her sweet voice, the immature piquancy of her movements that was the expression of her,

had stirred his imagination more potently than if he had been the veriest schoolboy nursing a downy lip. He

could not keep his eyes from this slender, exquisite girl, so dainty and graceful in her mobile piquancy. Fire

and passion were in his heart and soul, restraint and repression in his speech and manner. For the fire and

But for the girlshe was so little mistress of her heart that she had no prescience of the meaning of this

sweet content that filled her. And the voices that should have warned her were silent, busy behind the purple

The prospector's house in which they had found refuge was perched on the mountainside just at one edge of

the draw. Rough as the girl had thought it, there was a more pretentious appearance to it than might have

been expected. The cabin was of hewn logs mortared with mud, and care had been taken to make it warm.

The fireplace was a huge affair that ate fuel voraciously. It was built of stone, which had been gathered from

The prospect itself showed evidence of having been worked a good deal, and it was an easy guess for the man

who now stood looking into the tunnel that it belonged to some one of the thousands of miners who spend

half their time earning a grubstake, and the other half dissipating it upon some hole in the ground which they

From the tunnel his eye traveled up the face of the white mountain to the great snowcomb that yawned over

the edge of the rockrim far above. It had snowed again heavily all night, and now showed symptoms of a

thaw. Not once nor twice, but a dozen times, the man's anxious gaze had swept up to that great overhanging

bank. Snowslides ran every year in this section with heavy loss to life and property. Given a rising

temperature and some wind, the comb above would gradually settle lower and lower, at last break off, plunge

down the precipitous slope, bringing thousands of tons of rock and snow with it, and, perhaps, bury them in a

Titanic grave of ice. There had been a good deal of timber cut from the shoulder of the mountain during the

past summer, and this very greatly increased the danger. That there was a real peril the man looking at it did

not attempt to deny to himself. It would be enough to deny it to her in case she should ever suspect.

He had hoped for cold weather, a freeze hard enough to crust the surface of the snow. Upon this he might

have made shift somehow to get her to Yesler's ranch, eighteen miles away though it was, but he knew this

would not be feasible with the snow in its present condition. It was not certain that he could make the ranch

alone; encumbered with her, success would be a sheer impossibility. On the other hand, their provisions

would not last long. The outlook was not a cheerful one, from whichever point of view he took it; yet there

was one phase of it he could not regret. The factors which made the difficulties of the situation made also its

delights. Though they were prisoners in this solitary untrodden caynon, the sentence was upon both of them.

She could look to none other than he for aid; and, at least, the drifts which kept them in held others out.

"Wherefore this long communion with nature, my captain?" she gaily asked. "Behold, my, lord's hot cakes

are ready for the pan and his servant to wait upon him." She gave him a demure smiling little curtsy of mock

Never had her distracting charm been more in evidence. He had not seen her since they parted on the

previous night. He had built for himself a cot in the woodshack, and had contrived a curtain that could be

drawn in front of her bed in the livingroom. Thus he could enter in the morning, light the fires, and start

breakfast without disturbing her. She had dressed her hair, now in a different way, so that it fell in low waves

back from the forehead and was bunched at the nape of her neck. The light swiftness of her dainty grace, the

almost exaggerated carnation of the slightly parted lips, the glad eagerness that sparked her eyes, brought out

His grave eyes rested on her so long that a soft glow mantled her cheeks. Perhaps her words had been too

free, though she had not meant them so. For the first time some thought of the conventions distressed her.

Ought she to hold herself more in reserve toward him? Must she restrain her natural impulses to friendliness?

His eyes released her presently, but not before she read in them the feelings that had softened them as they

gazed into hers. They mirrored his poignant pleasure at the delight of her sweet slenderness so close to him,

his perilous joy at the intimacy fate had thrust upon them. Shyly her lids fell to the flushed cheeks.

"Breakfast is ready," she added selfconsciously, her girlish innocence startled like a fawn of the forest at the

For whereas she had been blind now she saw in part. Some flash of clairvoyance had laid bare a glimpse of

his heart and her own to her. Without misunderstanding the perfect respect for her which he felt, she knew the

turbid banked emotions which this dammed. Her heart seemed to beat in her bosom like an imprisoned dove.

It was his voice, calm and resonant with strength, that brought her to earth again.

After breakfast they went out and tramped together the little path of hardtrodden snow in front of the house.

"We shall soon be out of food, and, anyhow, we can't stay here all winter," she suggested with a tremulous

"It has been the experience of my life. I shall fence it off from all the days that have passed and all that are to

He began, then, to tell her what he must do, but at the first word of it she broke out in protest.

"I wish you could, but it is not possible. You could never get there. The snow is too soft and heavy for

"I know, but" She broke down and confessed her terror. "Would you leave me here alonewith all

"It's the only way," he said steadily. Every fiber in him rebelled at leaving her here to face peril alone, but his

reason overrode the desire and rebellion that were hot within him. He must think first of her ultimate safety,

Tears splashed down from the big eyes. "I didn't think you would leave me here alone. With you I don't mind

"Only for twentyfour hours. Perhaps less. I shouldn't think of it if it weren't necessary."

"Take me with you. I am strong. You don't know how strong I am. I promise to keep up with you. Please!"

He shook his head. "I would take you with me if I could. You know that. But it's a man's fight. I shall have to

stand up to it hour after hour till I reach Yesler's ranch. I shall get through, but it would not be possible for

He refused to consider that contingency. "But I shall. You may look to see me back with help by this time

"I'm not afraid with you. But if you go away Oh, I can't stand it. You don't knowyou don't know." She

He had to swallow down his sympathy before he went on. "Yes, I know. But you must be brave. You must

"You will think me a dreadful coward, and I am. But I can't help it. I AM afraid to stay alone. There's nothing

in the world but mountains of snow. They are horriblelike death except when you are here."

Her child eyes coaxed him to stay. The mad longing was in him to kiss the rosy little mouth with the queer

alluring droop to its corners. It was a strange thing how, with that arched twist to her eyebrows and with that

smile which came and went like sunshine in her eyes, she toppled his lifelong creed. The cardinal tenet of his

faith had been a belief in strength. He had first been drawn to Virginia by reason of her pluck and her power.

Yet this child's very weakness was her fountain of strength. She cried out with pain, and he counted it an

asset of virtue in her. She acknowledged herself a coward, and his heart went out to her because of it. The

battle assignments of life were not for the soft curves and shy winsomeness of this dainty lamb.

"You will be brave. I expect you to be brave, lieutenant." Words of love and comfort were crowding to his

"I may possibly get back before midnight, but you mustn't begin to expect me until tomorrow morning,

"Oh, I couldn'tI couldn't stay here at night alone. Don't go, please. I'll not get hungry, truly I won't, and

He rose, his face working. "I MUST go, child. It's the thing to do. I wish to Heaven it weren't. You must think

of yourself as quite safe here. You ARE safe. Don't make it hard for me to go, dear."

"I AM a coward. But I can't help it. There is so much snowand the mountains are so big." She tried

He buried her little hands in his two big ones and looked deep into her eyes. "Every minute of the time I am

away from you I shall be with you in spirit. You'll not be alone any minute of the day or night. Whether you

"I'll try to remember that," she answered, smiling up at him but with a trembling lip.

She put him up some lunch while he made his simple preparations. To the end of the trench she walked with

She looked up at him with a crooked wavering little smile. She wanted to be brave, but she could not trust

"Remember, dear. I am not leaving you. My body has gone on an errand. That is all."

Just now she found small comfort in this sophistry, but she did not tell him so.

"II'll remember." She gulped down a sob and still smiled through the mist that filmed her sight.

In his face she could see how much he was moved at her distress. Always a creature of impulse, one mastered

her now, the need to let her weakness rest on his strength. Her arms slipped quickly round his neck and her

head lay buried on his shoulder. He held her tight, eyes shining, the desire of her held in leash behind set

From some deep sex trait it comforted her that he suffered. With the mother instinct she began to regain

"It will not be for long," she assured him. "And every step of your way I shall pray for, your safety," she

He held her at arm's length while his gaze devoured her, then silently he wheeled away and plunged waist

deep into the drifts. As long as he was in sight he saw her standing there, waving her handkerchief to him in

encouragement. Her slight, dark figure, outlined against the snow, was the last thing his eyes fell upon before

But when he was surely gone, after one fearful look at the white sea which encompassed her, the girl fled to

the cabin, slammed the door after her, and flung herself on the bed to weep out her lonely terror in an ecstasy

of tears. She had spent the first violence of her grief, and was sitting crouched on the rug before the open fire

when the sound of a footstep, crunching the snow, startled her. The door opened, to let in the man who had

And when she had obediently joined him her eye followed his finger up the mountaintrail to a bend round

"It's a reliefparty," he said, and caught up his fieldglasses to look them over more certainly. Two men on

horseback, leading a third animal, were breaking a way down the trail, black spots against the background of

white. "I guess Fort Salvation's about to be relieved," he added grimly, following the party through the

She touched the back of his hand with a finger. "Are you glad?" she asked softly.

As he looked into her eyes the blood rushed to his brain with a surge. Her face turned to his unconsciously,

"Aline Hope," she said absently. Then a hot Rush ran over the girlish face. "No, no, I had forgotten. I was

The gates of paradise, open for two days, clanged to on Ridgway. He stared out with unseeing eyes into the

silent wastes of snow. The roaring in his ears and the mountainsides that churned before his eyes were

"I'll never forgetnever," he heard her falter, and her voice was a thousand miles away.

From the storm within him he was aroused by a startled cry from the girl at his side. Her fascinated gaze was

fixed on the summit of the ridge above them. There was a warning crackle. The overhanging comb snapped,

slid slowly down, and broke off. With gathering momentum it descended, sweeping into its heart rocks, trees,

and debris. A terrific roar filled the air as the great white cloud came tearing down like an expresstrain.

Ridgway caught her round the waist and flung the girl against the wall of the cabin, protecting her with his

body. The avalanche was upon them, splitting great trees to kindlingwood in the fury of its rush. The

concussion of the wind shattered every window to fragments, almost tore the cabin from its foundations.

Only the extreme tail of the slide touched them, yet they were buried deep in flying snow.

He found no great difficulty in digging a way out, and when he lifted her to the surface she was conscious.

Yet she was pale even to the lips and trembled like an aspen in the summer breeze, clinging to him for

The first of the trailbreakers had dismounted and was plowing his way hurriedly to the cabin, but neither of

"Are you sure?" She shuddered, her hands still in his. "Wasn't it awful? I thought" Her sentence trailed out

"Are you unhurt, Aline?" cried the newcomer. And when he saw she was, he added: "Praise ye the Lord. O

give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth forever. He saved them for His name's

At sound of the voice they turned and saw the man hurrying toward them. He was tall, gray, and seventy, of

massive frame and gaunt, still straight and vigorous, with the hooked nose and piercing eyes of a hawk. At

first glance he looked always the bird of prey, but at the next as invariably the wolf, an effect produced by the

salient reaching jaw and the glint of white teeth bared for a lip smile. Just now he was touched to a rare

emotion. His hands trembled and an expression of shaken thankfulness rested in his face.

Aline, still with Ridgway's strong arms about her, slowly came back to the inexorable facts of life.

"I would have died, except for" This brought her immediately to an introduction, and after she had quietly

released herself the man who had saved her heard himself being formally presented: "Mr. Ridgway, I want

Ridgway turned to Simon Harley a face of hammered steel and bowed, putting his hands deliberately behind

"I've been expecting you at Mesa, Mr. Harley," he said rigidly. "I'll be glad to have the pleasure of welcoming

The great financier was wondering where he had heard the man's name before, but he only said gravely: "You

Scornfully the other disdained this proffer. "Not at all. You owe me nothing, Mr. Harleyabsolutely

At this moment the mind of Harley fitted the name Ridgway to its niche in his brain. So this was the

audacious filibuster who had dared to fire on the trust flag, the man he had come West to ruin and to humble.

"I think you will have to include me, Mr. Ridgway," he said suavely. "What is done for my wife is done, also,

Aline had passed into the house, moved by an instinct which shrank from publicity in the inevitable personal

meeting between her and her husband. Now, Harley, with the cavalier nod of dismissal, which only a

multimillionaire can afford, followed her and closed the door. A passionate rush of blood swept Ridgway's

face. He saw red as he stood there with eyes burning into that door which had been shut in his face. The nails

of his clenched fingers bit into his palms, and his muscles gathered themselves tensely. He had been cast

aside, barred from the woman he loved by this septuagenarian, as carelessly as if he had no claim.

And it came home to him that now he had no claim, none before the law and society. They had walked in

Arcadia where shepherds pipe. They had taken life for granted as do the creatures of the woods, forgetful of

the edicts of a world that had seemed far and remote. But that world had obtruded itself and shattered their

dream. In the person of Simon Harley it had shut the door which was to separate him and her. Hitherto he had

taken from life what he had wanted, but already he was grappling with the blind fear of a fate for once too

"Well, I'm damned if it isn't Waring Ridgway," called a mellow voice from across the gulch.

"I didn't notice it was you, Sam. Better bring the horses across this side of that fringe of aspens."

The dismounted horseman followed directions and brought the floundering horses through, and after leaving

them in the cleared place where Ridgway had cut his firewood he strolled leisurely forward to meet the

mineowner. He was a youngish man, broad of shoulder and slender of waist, a trifle bowed in the legs from

much riding, but with an elastic sufficiency that promised him the man for an emergency, a pledge which his

steady steelblue eyes, with the humorous lines about the corners, served to make more valuable. His apparel

suggested the careless efficiency of the cowman, from the highheeled boots into which were thrust his

corduroys to the broadbrimmed white Stetson set on his sunreddened wavy hair. A man's man, one would

vote him at first sight, and subsequent impressions would not contradict the first.

"Didn't know you were down in this neck of woods, Waring," he said pleasantly, as they shook hands.

An onlooker might have noticed that both of them gripped hands heartily and looked each other squarely in

"I came down on business and got caught in the blizzard on my way back. Came on her freezing in the

machine and brought her here along with me. I had my eye on that slide. The snow up there didn't look good

to me, and the grub was about out, anyhow, so I was heading for the C B Ranch when I sighted you."

"Golden luck for her. I knew it was a chance in a million that she was still alive, but Harley wanted to take it.

Say, that old fellow's made of steel wire. Two of my boys are plugging along a mile or two behind us, but he

stayed right with the game to a finishand him seventythree, mind you, and a New Yorker at that. The old

"You're right he ain't. And say, but he's fond of his wife. Soon as he struck the ranch the old man butted out

again into the blizzard to get herslipped out before we knew it. The boys rounded him up wandering round

the big pasture, and none too soon neither. All the time we had to keep herd on him to keep him from taking

another whirl at it. He was like a crazy man to tackle it, though he must aknown it was suicide. Funny how a

man takes a shine to a woman and thinks the sun rises and sets by her. Far, as I have been able to make out

women are much of a sameness, though I ain't setting up for a judge. Like as not this woman don't care a

"Why should she? He bought her with his millions, I suppose. What right has an old man like that with one

foot in the grave to pick out a child and marry her? I tell you, Sam, there's something ghastly about it."

"Oh, well, I reckon when she sold herself she knew what she was getting. It's about an even thingsix of one

and half a dozen of the other. There must be something rotten about a woman who will do a thing of that

"Wait till you've seen her before passing judgment. And after you have you'll apologize if you're a white man

Yesler looked at his friend in amiable surprise. "I don't reckon we need to quarrel about Simon Harley's

A glitter of mischief gleamed from the cattleman's eyes. "Meaning Harley, Waring?"

"You know who I mean. I tell you she's an angel from heaven, pure as the driven snow."

"And I tell you that I'll take your word for it without quarreling with you," was the goodhumored retort.

"What's up, anyhow? I never saw you so touchy before. You're a regular pepperbox."

The rescuers had brought food with them, and the party ate lunch before starting back. The cowpunchers of

the C B had now joined them, both of them, as well as their horses, very tired with the heavy travel.

"This here Marathon race business through threefoot snow ain't for invalids like me and Husky," one of

them said cheerfully, with his mouth full of sandwich. "We're also rans, and don't even show for place."

Yet though two of them had, temporarily at least, been rescued from imminent danger, and success beyond

their expectations had met the others, it was a silent party. A blanket of depression seemed to rest upon it,

which the good stories of Yesler and the genial nonsense of his man, Chinn, were unable to lift. Three of

them, at least, were brooding over what the morning had brought forth, and trying to realize what it might

"We'd best be going, I expect," said Yesler at last. "We've got a right heavy bit of work cut out for us, and the

Ridgway nodded silently. He knew that the stockman was dubious, as he himself was, about being able to

make the return trip in safety. The horses were tired; so, too, were the men who had broken the heavy trail for

so many miles, with the exception of Sam himself, who seemed built of whipcord and elastic. They would be

greatly encumbered by the woman, for she would certainly give out during the journey. The one point in their

Simon Harley helped his wife into the boy's saddle on the back of the animal they had led, but his

inexperience had to give way to Yesler's skill in fitting the stirrups to the proper length for her feet. To

Ridgway, who had held himself aloof during this preparation, the stockman now turned with a wave of his

Ridgway led the party across the gulch, following the trail that had been swept by the slide. The cowboys

followed him, next came Harley, his wife, and in the rear the cattleman. They descended the draw, and

presently dipped over rolling ground to the plain beyond. The procession plowed steadily forward mile after

Chinn, who had watched him breasting the soft heavy blanket that lay on the ground so deep and hemmed

"On the way coming I told you, Husky, we had the best man in Montana at our head. We got that beat now to

"He's got the guts, all right, but there ain't nothing on two legs can keep it up much longer," replied the other.

It was not, however, until dusk was beginning to fall that the leader stopped. Yesler's voice brought him up

Ridgway strode back past the exhausted cowboys and Harley, the latter so beaten with fatigue that he could

"I saw it coming. She's been done for a long time, but she hung on like a thoroughbred," explained Yesler

He had her in his arms and was trying to get at a flask of whisky in his hippocket.

"All right. I'll take care of her, Sam. You go ahead with your horse and break trail. I don't like the way this

wind is rising. It's wiping out the path you made when you broke through. How far's the ranch now?"

"It's going to be a near thing, Sam. Your men are played out. Harley will never make it without help. From

Yesler nodded quietly. "Some one has got to go ahead for help. That's the only way."

"It will have to be you, of course. You know the road best and can get back quickest. Better take her pony.

The owner of the C B hesitated an instant before he answered. He was the last man in the world to desert a

comrade that was down, but his common sense told him his friend had spoken wisely. The only chance for

"All right. If anybody plays out beside her try to keep him going. If it comes to a showdown leave him for me

"Get up on my horse and I'll give her to you. That's right Well, I'll see you later."

And with that the stockman was gone. For long they could see him, plunging slowly forward through the

drifts, getting always smaller and smaller, till distance and the growing darkness swallowed him.

"You needn't be. We're coming through, all right. Sam will make it to the ranch. He's a man in a million."

But he knew if she did not. Her fear had passed because he was there, holding her in his arms, fighting to the

last ounce of power in him for her life. She felt he would never leave her, and that, if it came to the worst, she

would pass from life with him close to her. Again he knew that wild exultant beat of blood no woman before

Harley was the first to give up. He lurched forward and slipped from the saddle to the snow, and could not be

cursed into rising. The man behind dismounted, put down his burden, and dragged the old man to his feet.

"I can't. I've reached my limit." Then testily: "'Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone,'" he added

The instant the other's hold on him relaxed the old man sank back. Ridgway dragged him up and cuffed him

"Are you going to lie down and quit, you old loafer? I tell you the ranch is only a mile or two. Here, get into

By sheer strength the younger man hoisted him into the seat. He was very tired himself, but the vital sap of

youth in him still ran strong in his blood. For a few yards farther they pushed on before Harley slid down

Chinn was the next to drop out, and after him the one he called Husky. Both their horses had been abandoned

a mile or two back, too exhausted to continue. Each of them Ridgway urged to stick to the trail and come on

He knew the horse he was riding could not much longer keep going with the double weight, and when at

length its strength gave out completely he went on afoot, carrying her in his arms as on that eventful night

It was so the rescueparty found him, still staggering forward with her like a man in a sleep, flesh and blood

and muscles all protestant against the cruelty of his indomitable will that urged them on in spite of

themselves. In a dream he heard Yesler's cheery voice, gave up his burden to one of the rescuers, and found

himself being lifted to a fresh horse. From this dream he awakened to find himself before the great fire of the

livingroom of the ranchhouse, wakened from it only long enough to know that somebody was undressing

Nature, with her instinct for renewing life, saw to it that Ridgway slept round the clock. He arose fit for

anything. His body, hard as nails, suffered no reaction from the terrific strain he had put upon it, and he went

down to his breakfast with an appetite ravenous for whatever good things Yesler's Chinese cook might have

"I'm all right, barring a little stiffness in my muscles. I'll feel good as the wheat when I've got outside of the

Yesler touched a bell, whereupon a softfooted Oriental appeared, turned almond eyes on his proprietor, took

orders and padded silently back to his kingdomthe kitchen. Almost immediately he reappeared with a bowl

His host waved him the freedom of the diningroom, and Ridgway fell to. Never before had food tasted so

good. He had been too sleepy to cat last night, but now he made amends. The steak, the muffins, the coffee,

were all beyond praise, and when he came to the buckwheat hot cakes, sandwiched with butter and drenched

with real maple syrup, his satisfied soul rose up and called Hop Lee blessed. When he had finished, Sam

Ridgway's eyes glistened. "I haven't smoked for days," he explained, and after the smoke had begun to rise,

"Even so, Sam," returned the other equably. "And now, tell me how you managed to round us all up safely."

"Yes, I've been talking with one of your enthusiastic riders that went out with you after us. He's been

flimflammed into believing you the greatest man in the United States. Tell me how you do it."

"Didn't he? You should have heard him reel off your praises by the yard. I got the whole story of how you

"Then, if you've got it, I don't need to tell you. I WAS a bit worried about the old man. He was pretty far gone

when we reached him, but he pulled through all right. He's still sleeping like a top."

"Is he?" His guest's hard gaze came round to meet his. "And the lady? Do you know how she stood it?"

"My sister says she was pretty badly played out, but all she needs is rest. Nell put her in her own bed, and

Ridgway smoked out his cigar in silence then tossed it into the fireplace as he rose briskly.

"Forget business for a day or two, Waring, and take it easy up here," counseled his host.

"Can't do it. I have to make arrangements to welcome Simon Harley to Mesa. The truth is, Sam, that there are

several things that won't wait. I've got to frame them up my way. Can you get me through to the railroad in

"I think so. The road has been traveled for two or three days. If you really must go. I hate to have you streak

"I'd like to stay, Sam, but I can't. For one thing, there's that senatorial fight coming on. Now that Harley's on

the ground in person, I'll have to look after my fences pretty close. He's a good fighter, and he'll be out to

"After what you've done for him. Don't you think that will make a difference, Waring?"

His friend laughed without mirth. "What have I done for him? I left him in the snow to die, and while a good

many thousand other people would bless me for it, probably he has a different point of view."

"You've said it exactly. I did it for her, not for him. I'll accept nothing from Harley on that account. He is

Yesler shrugged his shoulders. " All right. I'll order a rig hitched for you and drive you over myself. I want to

talk over this senatorial fight anyhow. The way things look now it's going to be the rottenest session of the

legislature we've ever had. Sometimes I'm sick of being mixed up in the thing, but I got myself elected to help

"That's right, Sam. With a few good fighters like you we can win out. Anything to beat the Consolidated."

"Anything to keep our politics decent," corrected the other. "I've got nothing against the Consolidated, but I

won't lie down and let it or any other private concern hogtie this Statenot if I can help it, anyhow."

Behind wary eyes Ridgway studied him. He was wondering how far this man would go as his tool. Sam

Yesler held a unique position in the State. His influence was commanding among the sturdy oldtime

population represented by the nonmining interests of the smaller towns and open plains. He must be won at

all hazards to lend it in the impending fight against Harley. The mineowner knew that no thought of

personal gain would move him. He must be made to feel that it was for the good of the State that the

The president of the Mesa Oreproducing Company stepped from the parlorcar of the Limited at the hour

when all wise people are taking life easy after a good dinner. He did not, however, drive to his club, but took

a cab straight for his rooms, where he had telegraphed Eaton to meet him with the general superintendent of

all his properties and his private secretary, Smythe. For nearly a week his finger had been off the pulse of the

situation, and he wanted to get in touch again as soon as possible. For in a struggle as tense as the one

between him and the trust, a hundred vital things might have happened in that time. He might be coming back

to catastrophe and ruin, brought about while he had been a prisoner to love in that snowbound cabin.

Prisoner to love he had been and still was, but the business men who met him at his rooms, fellow

adventurers in the forlorn hope he had hitherto led with such signal success, could have read nothing of this

in the marble, chiseled face of their sagacious general, so indomitable of attack and insatiate of success. His

steelhard eyes gave no hint of the Arcadia they had inhabited so eagerly a short twentyfour hours before.

The intoxicating madness he had known was chained deep within him. Once more he had a grip on himself;

was sheathed in a cannonproof plate armor of selfishness. No more magic nights of starshine, breathing fire

and dew; no more lifted moments of exaltation stinging him to a pulsating wonder at life's wild delight. He

was again the inexorable driver of men, with no pity for their weaknesses any more than for his own.

The men whom he found waiting for him at his rooms were all young Westerners picked out by him because

he thought them courageous, unscrupulous and loyal. Like him, they were privateers in the seas of commerce,

and sailed under no flag except the one of insurrection he had floated. But all of them, though they were

associated with him and hoped to ride to fortune on the wave that carried him there, recognized themselves as

subordinates in the enterprises he undertook. They were merely heads of departments, and they took orders

Now he heard their reports, asked an occasional searching question, and swiftly gave decisions of

farreaching import. It was past midnight before he had finished with them, and instead of retiring for the

sleep he might have been expected to need, he spent the rest of the night inspecting the actual workings of the

properties he had not seen for six days. Hour after hour he passed examining the developments, sometimes in

the breasts of the workings and again consulting with engineers and foremen in charge. Light was breaking in

the sky before he stepped from the cage of the Jack Pot and boarded a streetcar for his rooms. Cornishmen

and Hungarians and Americans, going with their dinnerbuckets to work, met him and received each a nod or

a word of greeting from this splendidly built young Hermes in miners' slops, who was to many of them, in

their fancy, a deliverer from the slavery which the Consolidated was ready to force upon them.

Once at his rooms, Ridgway took a cold bath, dressed carefully, breakfasted, and was ready to plunge into the

mass of work which had accumulated during his absence at the mining camp of Alpine and the subsequent

period while he was snowbound. These his keen, practical mind grasped and disposed of in crisp sentences.

"Phone Ballard and Dalton I want to see them at once. Tell Murphy I won't talk with him. What I said before

I left was final. Write Cadwallader we can't do business on the terms he proposes, but add that I'm willing to

continue his Mary Kinney lease. Dictate a letter to Riley's lawyer, telling him I can't afford to put a premium

on incompetence and negligence; that if his client was injured in the Jack Pot explosion, he has nobody but

himself to blame for it. Otherwise, of course, I should be glad to pension him. Let me see the letter before you

send it. I don't want anything said that will offend the union. Have two tons of good coal sent up to Riley's

house, and notify his grocer that all bills for the next three months may be charged to me. And, Smythe, ask

Stephen Eaton, an alert, cleareyed young fellow who served as fidus Achates to Ridgway, and was the

secretary and treasurer of the Mesa Oreproducing Company, took the seat Smythe had vacated. He was

goodlooking, after a boyish, undistinguished fashion, but one disposed to be critical might have voted the

chin not quite definite enough. He had been a clerk of the Consolidated, working for one hundred dollars a

month, when Ridgway picked him out and set his feet in the way of fortune. He had done this out of personal

"Steve, my opinion is that Alpine is a false alarm. Unless I guess wrong, it is merely a surface proposition

"Yes, I know what Miller says. He's wrong. I don't care if he is the biggest copper expert in the country."

"But why? What do you want with it if the property is no good?" asked Eaton in surprise.

Ridgway laughed shortly. "I don't want it, but the Consolidated does. Two of their experts were up at Alpine

last week, and both of them reported favorably. I've let it leak out to their lawyer, O'Malley, that Miller

thought well of it; in fact, I arranged to let one of their spies steal a copy of his report to us."

"They won't know till too late. I bought through a dummy. It seemed a pity not to let then have the property

since they wanted it so badly, so this morning he sold out for me to the Consolidated at a profit of a hundred

Eaton grinned appreciatively. It was in startling finesse of this sort his chief excelled, and Stephen was

"I notice that Hobart slipped out of town last night. That is where he must have been going. He'll be sick

Ridgway permitted himself an answering smile. "I suppose it will irritate him a trifle, but that can't be helped.

"Yes, I was worried about that. Notes have been piling up against us that must be met. There's the Ransom

"He told me he would have to have his money when it came due. I've noticed he has been pretty close to Mott

"I'm watching him, Steve. Don't worry about that. He did arrange to sell the note to Mott, but I stopped that

"For a year I've had all the evidence of that big government timber steal of his in a safetydeposit vault.

Before he sold, I had a few words with him. He changed his mind and decided he preferred to hold the notes.

More, he is willing to let us have another hundred thousand if we have to have it."

Eaton's delight bubbled out of him in boyish laughter. "You're a wonder, Waring. There's nobody like you.

"Yes, they say he's coming out in person to run the fight against you. I hope not."

"It isn't a matter of hoping any longer. He's here," calmly announced his leader.

"Seen him, talked with him, cursed him and cuffed him," announced Ridgway with a reminiscent gleam in

The president of the Mesa Oreproducing Company leaned back with his thumbs in the armholes of his fancy

"That's what I meant to say. I roughed him around quite a bitmanhandled him in general. But all FOR HIS

"For his good?" Eaton's dazed brain tried to conceive the situation of a billionaire being mauled for his good,

and gave it up in despair. If Steve Eaton worshipped anything, it was wealth. He was a born sycophant, and it

was partly because his naive unstinted admiration had contributed to satisfy his chief's vanity that the latter

had made of him a confidant. Now he sat dumb before the lesemajeste of laying forcible hands upon the

"If it is, I don't know the answer, Steve. But it is a true one, anyhow, not made to order merely to astonish

"True that you picked Simon Harley's wife out of a snowdrift and kicked him around?"

"I didn't say kicked, did I?" inquired the other, judicially. "But I rather think I did knee him some."

"Of course, I read all about his marriage two weeks ago to Miss Aline Hope. Did he bring her out here with

"If he did, I euchred him out of it. She spent it with me alone in a miner's cabin," the other cried, malevolence

"Whenever you're ready to explain," suggested Eaton helplessly. "You've piled up too many miracles for me

"You know I was snowbound, but you did not know my only companion was this Aline Hope you speak of.

I found her in the blizzard, and took her to an empty cabin near. She and her husband were motoring from

Avalanche to Mesa, and the machine had broken down. Harley had gone for help and left her there alone

when the blizzard came up. Three days later Sam Yesler and the old man broke trail through from the C B

"He didn't rescue me any. I could have broken through any time I wanted to leave her. On the way back his

strength gave out, and that was when I roughed him. I tried to bullyrag him into keeping on, but it was no go.

"No!" cried Ridgway. "Do I look like a man to desert a woman on a snowtrail? I took her with me."

"Oh!" There was a significant silence before Eaton asked the question in his mind. "I've seen her pictures in

His chief knew what was behind the question, and he knew, too, that Eaton might be taken to represent public

opinion. The world would cast an eye of review over his varied and discreditable record with women. It

would imagine the story of those three days of enforced confinement together, and it would look to the

woman in the case for an answer to its suspicions. That she was young, lovely, and yet had sold herself to an

old man for his millions, would go far in itself to condemn her; and he was aware that there were many who

Waring Ridgway put his arms akimbo on the table and leaned across with his steady eyes fastened on his

"Steve, I'm going to answer that question. I haven't seen any pictures of her in the papers, but if they show a

face as pure and true as the face of God himself then they are like her. You know me. I've got no apologies or

explanations to make for the life I've led. That's my business. But you're my friend, and I tell you I would

rather be hacked in pieces by Apaches than soil that child's white soul by a single unclean breath. There

mustn't be any talk. Do you understand? Keep the story out of the newspapers. Don't let any of our people

gossip about it. I have told you because I want you to know the truth. If any one should speak lightly about

this thing stop him at once. This is the one point on which Simon Harley and I will pull together.

Any man who joins that child's name with mine loosely will have to leave this campand suddenly."

"Then garble the story. Change that three days to three hours, Steve. Anything to stop their foulclacking

"Oh, well! I dare say the story won't get out at all, but if it does I'll see the gossips get the right version. I

"Of course. He's a white man. And I don't need to tell you that I'll be a whole lot obliged to you, Stevie."

"That's all right. Sometimes I'm a white man, too, Waring," laughed Steve. Ridgway circled the table and put

a hand on the younger man's shoulder affectionately. Steve Eaton was the one of all his associates for whom

It was next morning that Steve came into Ridgway's offices with a copy of the Rocky Mountain Herald in his

hands. As soon as the president of the Mesa Oreproducing Company was through talking with Dalton, the

superintendent of the Taurus, about the best means of getting to the cage a quantity of ore he was looting

from the Consolidated property adjoining, the treasurer plumped out with his news.

"Seen today's paper, Waring? It smokes out Pelton to a finish. They've moled out some facts we can't get

Ridgway glanced rapidly over the paper. "We'll have to drop Pelton and find another candidate for the

Senate. Sorry, but it can't be helped. They've got his record down too fine. That affidavit from Quinton puts

"His own fault for not covering his tracks better. This exposure doesn't help us any at best. If we still tried to

"No. He'll be here as quick as he can cover the ground. Have him shown in as soon as he comes. And

"Yes. He is putting up at the Mesa House. He reserved an entire floor by wire, so that he has bedrooms,

diningrooms, parlors, receptionhalls and private offices all together. The place is policed thoroughly, and

"I haven't been thinking of going up and shooting him, even though it would be a blessing to the country,"

"No, but it is possible somebody else might. This town is full of ignorant foreigners who would hardly think

twice of it. If he had asked my advice, it would have been to stay away from Mesa."

"He wouldn't have taken it," returned Ridgway carelessly. "Whatever else is true about him, Simon Harley

isn't a coward. He would have told you that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the permission of the

"All the same I'm going to pass his police patrols and pay a visit to the third floor of the Mesa House."

"Compromise nothing, I'm going to pay a formal social call on Mrs. Harley, and respectfully hope that she

"I think so. We'll scotch the lying tongue of rumor by a strict observance of the conventions. Madam Grundy

is padlocked when we reduce the situation to the absurdity of the common place."

"I think we may trust Simon Harley to see to that," answered his chief with a grim smile "Obviously our

social relations aren't likely to be very intimate. Now it's 'Just before the battle mother,' but once the big guns

"You've established a sort of claim on him. It wouldn't surprise me if he would meet you halfway in settling

"The trouble is that I won't meet him halfway. I can't afford to be reasonable, Steve. Just suppose for an

instant that I had been reasonable five years ago when this fight began. They would have bought me out for a

miserable pittance of a hundred and fifty thousand or so. That would have been a reasonable figure then. You

might put it now at five or six millions, and that would be about right. I don't want their money. I want power,

and I'd rather fight for it than not. Besides, I mean to make what I have already wrung from them a lever for

getting more. I'm going to show Harley that he has met a man at last he can't either freeze out or bully out.

I'm going to let him and his bunch know I'm on earth and here to stay; that I can beat them at their own game

"Did it ever occur to you, Waring, that it might pay to make this a limited round contest? You've won on

points up to date by a mile, but in a finish fight endurance counts. Money is the same as endurance here, and

Eaton made this suggestion diffidently, for though he was a stockholder and official of the Mesa

Oreproducing Company, he was not used to offering its head unasked advice. The latter, however, took it

To this jaunty retort Eaton had found no answer when Smythe opened the door to announce the arrival of the

Honorable Thomas B. Pelton, very anxious for an immediate interview with Mr. Ridgway.

"Show him in," nodded the president, adding in an aside: "You better stay, Steve."

Pelton was a rotund oracular individual in silk hat and a Prince Albert coat of broadcloth. He regarded

himself solemnly as a statesman because he had served two inconspicuous terms in the House at Washington.

He was fond of proclaiming himself a Southern gentleman, part of which statement was unnecessary and part

"Have you seen the infamous libel in that scurrilous sheet of the gutters the Herald?" he demanded

"The one, seh, which slanders my honorable name; which has the scoundrelly audacity to charge me with

"I shall force a retraction, seh, or I shall demand the satisfaction due a Southern gentleman.

"Yes, I would, colonel," replied Ridgway, secretly amused at the vain threats of this bag of wind which had

"What part of it? I've just glanced over it, but the part I read seems to be true. That's the trouble with it. If it

"Of course. The trouble will be to get people to believe your denial with Quinton's affidavit staring them in

the face. It seems they have got hold of a letter, too, that you wrote. Deny it, of course, then lie low and give

"That's entirely as you please, colonel, but I'm afraid you'll find your support will slip away from you."

Ridgway locked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. "We've got to face facts, colonel. In

"Certainly. I should in your place," agreed the mineowner coolly. "The question is, how many people are

Tiny sweatbeads stood on the forehead of the Arkansan. His manner was becoming more and more

threatening. "You pledged me your support. Are you going to throw me down, seh?"

"You have thrown yourself down, Pelton. Is it my fault you bungled the thing and left evidence against you?

"I beg your pardon. It was done for what was in it for you. The arrangement between us was purely a

"So I'm to get burnt drawing your chestnuts out of the fire, am I? You're going to stand back and let my

career be sacrificed, are you? By Gad, seh, I'll show you whether I'll be your catspaw," screamed the

"Use your common sense, Pelton, and don't shriek like a fishwife," ordered Ridgway sharply. "No sane man

floats a leaky ship. Go to drydock and patch up your reputation, and in a few years you'll come out as good as

All his unprincipled life Pelton had compromised with honor to gain the coveted goal he now saw slipping

from him. A kind of madness of despair surged up in him. He took a step threateningly toward the seated

man, his hand slipping back under his coattails toward his hip pocket. Acridly his high voice rang out.

"As a Southern gentleman, seh, I refuse to tolerate the imputations you cast upon me. I demand an apology

"Don't try to bully ME, you false alarm. Call yourself a Southern gentleman! You're a shallow scurvy

impostor. No more like the real article than a buzzard is like an eagle. Take your hand from under that coat or

Flabby was the word, morally no less than physically. Pelton quailed under that gaze which bored into him

like a gimlet. The ebbing color in his face showed he could summon no reserve of courage sufficient to meet

"Don't get excited, Mr. Ridgway. You have mistaken my purpose, seh. I had no intention of drawing," he

"I don't care to have anything more to do with you. Our relations are at an end, seh," quavered Pelton as he

Ridgway returned to his chair, laughing ruefully. "I couldn't help it, Steve. He would have it. I suppose I've

"We'll draw his fangs while there is still time. Get a good story in the Sun to the effect that I quarreled with

him as soon as I discovered his connection with this mining extension bill graft. Have it in this afternoon's

Steve nodded. "That's a good idea. We may make capital out of it after all. I'll have an editorial in, too. 'We

"Good. And now we'll have to look around for a candidate to put against Mott. I'm hanged if I know where

The owner of the name stared at his lieutenant in astonishment, but slowly the fascination o the idea sank in.

"Says you're to come right up, Mr. Ridgway," the bellhop reported, and after he had pocketed his tip, went

The president of the Mesa Oreproducing Company turned with a goodhumored smile to the chief clerk.

"You overwork your boys, Johnson. I wasn't through with that one. I'll have to ask you to send another up to

They passed muster under the eye of the chief detective, and, after the bellboy had rung, were admitted to

the private parlor where Simon Harley lay stretched on a lounge with his wife beside him. She had been

reading, evidently aloud and when her visitor was announced rose with her finger still keeping the place in

The gaze she turned on him was of surprise, almost of alarm, so that the man on the threshold knew he was

"No. Did you send one?" Then, with a little gesture of halflaughing irritation: "It must have gone to Mr.

Harvey again. He is Mr. Harley's private secretary, and ever since we arrived it has been a comedy of errors.

"I must ask you to accept my regrets for an unintentional intrusion, Mrs. Harley. When I was told to come up,

The great financier had got to his feet and now came forward with extended hand.

"Nevertheless we are glad to see you, Mr. Ridgway, and to get the opportunity to express our thanks for all

The cool fingers of the younger man touched his lightly before they met those of his wife.

"Yes, we are very glad, indeed, to see you, Mr. Ridgway," she added to her husband's welcome.

"I could not feel quite easy in my mind without hearing from your own lips that you are none the worse for

the adventures you have suffered," their visitor explained after they had found seats.

"Thanks to you, my wife is quite herself again, Mr. Ridgway," Harley announced from the davenport.

"Thanks also to God, who so mercifully shelters us beneath the shadow of His wing."

But her caller preferred to force from Aline's own lips this affidavit of health. Even his audacity could not

ignore his host entirely, but it gave him the least consideration possible. To the question which still rested in

"Indeed, I am perfectly well. I have done nothing but sleep today and yesterday. Miss Yesler was very good

to me. I do not know how I can repay the great kindness of so many friends," she said with a swift descent of

"Indeed!" Ridgway put it with polite insolence, the hostility in his face scarcely veiled.

"It has pleased Providence to multiply my portion so abundantly that I can reward those well who serve me."

"At how much do you estimate Mrs. Harley's life?" his rival asked with quiet impudence.

In the course of the past two days Aline had made the discovery that her husband and her rescuer were at

swords drawn in a business way. This had greatly distressed her, and in her innocence she had resolved to

bring them together. How could her inexperience know that she might as well have tried to induce the lion

and the lamb to lie down together peaceably? Now she tried timidly to drift the conversation from the

awkwardness into which Harley's suggestion of a reward and his opponent's curt retort had blundered it.

"I hope you did not find upon your return that your business was disarranged so much as you feared it might

"I found my affairs in very good condition," Ridgway smiled. "But I am glad to be back in time to welcome

"It seems so strange a place," the girl ventured, with a hesitation that showed her anxiety not to offend his

local pride. "You see I never before was in a place where there was no grass and nothing green in sight. And

tonight, when I looked out of the window and saw streams of redhot fire running down hills, I thought of

"At night sometimes I still get that feeling, but I have to cultivate it a bit," he confessed. "My sober second

thought insists that those molten rivers are merely business, refuse disgorged as lava from the great smelters."

"I looked for the sun today through the pall of sulphur smoke that hangs so heavy over the town, but instead

"Not when the drift of the wind is right. In fact, a day like this is quite unusual."

"I'm glad of that. I feel more cheerful in the sunshine. I know that's a bit of the child still left in me. Mr.

The Wall Street operator was in slippers and housejacket. His wife, too, was dressed comfortably in some

soft clinging stuff. Their visitor saw that they had disposed themselves for a quiet uninterrupted evening by

the fireside. The domesticity of it all stirred the envy in him. He did not want her to be contented and at peace

with his enemy. Something deeper than his vanity cried out in protest against it.

She was still making talk against the gloom of the sulphur fog which seemed to have crept into the spirit of

"We were reading before you came in, Mr. Ridgway. I suppose you read a good deal. Mr. Harley likes to

An impulse came upon Ridgway to hear her, some such impulse as makes a man bite on sore tooth even

"Will you not go on with your reading? I should like to hear it. I really should."

She was a little taken aback, but she looked inquiringly at her husband, who bowed silently.

"I was just beginning the fiftyninth psalm. We have been reading the book through. Mr. Harley finds great

Her eyes fell to the printed page and her clear, sweet voice took up the ancient tale of vengeance

"Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from

"For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul: the mighty are gathered against me; not for my transgression, nor for my

sin, O Lord. They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold.

"Thou, therefore, O Lord God of Hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to

Ridgway glanced across in surprise at the strong old man lying on the lounge. His hands were locked in front

of him, and his gaze rested peacefully on the fair face of the child reading. His foe's mind swept up the

insatiable cruel years that lay behind this man, and he marveled that with such a past he could still hold fast to

that simple faith of David. He wondered whether this ruthless spoiler went back to the Old Testament for the

justification of his life, or whether his credo had given the impulse to his career. One thing he no longer

doubted: Simon Harley believed his Bible implicitly and literally, and not only the New Testament.

"For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying

"Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob

The fresh young girlish voice died away into silence. Harley, apparently deep in meditation, gazed at the

ceiling. His guest felt a surge of derision at this man who thought he had a compact with God to rule the

"I am sure Mr. Harley must enjoy the Psalms a great deal," he said ironically, but it was in simple faith the

"Few people take their religion so closely into their everyday lives as he does," she replied in a low voice,

"He is very greatly misunderstood, Mr. Ridgway. I am sure if people knew how good he is But how can

they know when the newspapers are so full of falsehoods about him? And the magazines are as bad, he says.

It seems to be the fashion to rake up bitter things to say about prominent business men. You must have

"Don't you think it could be explained to these writers? They can't WANT to distort the truth. It must be they

"You must not take the muckrakers too seriously. They make a living roasting us. A good deal of what they

say is true in a way. Personally, I don't object to it much. It's a part of the penalty of being successful. That's

"A good deal like it. But that need not frighten you. All life is a battlesometimes, at least. Success implies

"Sometimes. But you must look at it in a big way." The secretary of the trust magnate had come in and was in

lowtoned conversation with him. The visitor led her to the nearest window and drew back the curtains so

that they looked down on the lusty life of the turbid young city, at the lights in the distant smelters and mills,

at the great hill opposite, with its slagdumps, gallowsframes and shafthouses black against the dim light,

which had yielded its millions and millions of tons of ore for the use of mankind. "All this had to be fought

for. It didn't grow of itself. And because men fought for it, the place is what it is. Sixty thousand people live

here, fed by the results of the battle. The highest wages in the world are paid the miners here. They live in

rough comfort and plenty, whereas in the countries they came from they were underpaid and underfed. Is that

"Life for you and for me must be different, thank God. You are in the world to make for the happiness of

those you meet. That is good. But unless I am to run away from my work, what I do must make some

unhappy. I can't help that if I am to do big things. When you hear people talking of the harm I do, you will

remember what I have told you tonight, and you will think that a man and his work cannot be judged by

"Yes," she breathed softly, for she knew that this man was saying goodby to her and was making his

"And you will remember that no matter how bitter the fight may grow between me and Mr. Harley, it has

nothing to do with you. We shall still be friends, though we may never meet again."

"You have been hoping that Mr. Harley and I would be friends. That is impossible. He came out here to crush

me. For years his subordinates have tried to do this and failed. I am the only man alive that has ever resisted

him successfully. I don't underestimate his power, which is greater than any czar or emperor that ever lived,

but I don't think he will succeed. I shall win because I understand the forces against me. He will lose because

"I am sorry. Oh, I am so sorry," she wailed, gently as a breath of summer wind. For she saw now that the

"That you must be enemies; that he came here to ruin you, since you say he did."

"You need not be too hard on him for that. By his code I am a freebooter and a highwayman. Business offers

legitimate ways of robbery, and I transgress them. His ways are not my ways, and mine are not his, but it is

"I don't understand it at all. You are both good men. I know you are. Surely you need not be enemies."

Presently she led him back across the big room to the fireplace near where her husband lay. His secretary had

gone, and he was lying resting on the lounge. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. "Has Mr. Ridgway been

"Yes, dear." The last word came hesitantly after the slightest of pauses. "He says he must be going now."

The head of the greatest trust on earth got to his feet and smiled benignantly as he shook hands with the

departing guest. "I shall hope to see you very soon and have a talk regarding business, Mr. Ridgway," he said.

"Whenever you like, Mr. Harley." To the girl he said merely, "Good night," and was gone.

She repressed the little shiver that ran through her before she answered wearily. "I am a little tired. If you

He saw her as far as the door of her apartments and left her with her maid after he had kissed the cold cheek

Apparently the head of the great trust intended to lose no time in having that business talk with Ridgway,

which he had graciously promised the latter. Eaton and his chief were busy over some applications for leases

Ridgway ripped open the envelope, read through the letter swiftly, and tossed it to Eaton. His eyes had grown

"Write to Mr. Hobart that I am sorry I haven't time to call on Mr. Harley at the Consolidated offices, as he

suggests. Add that I expect to be in my offices all morning, and shall be glad to make an appointment to talk

with Mr. Harley here, if he thinks he has any business with me that needs a personal interview."

Smythe's leathery face had as much expression as a blank wall, but Eaton gasped. The unparalleled audacity

of flinging the billionaire's overture back in his face left him for the moment speechless. He knew that

Ridgway had tempted Providence a hundred times without coming to disaster, but surely this was going too

far. Any reasonable compromise with the great trust builder would be cause for felicitation. He had

confidence in his chief to any point in reason, but he could not blind himself to the fact that the wonderful

successes he had gained were provisional rather than final. He likened them to Stonewall Jackson's

Shenandoah raid, very successful in irritating, disorganizing and startling the enemy, but with no serious

bearing on the final inevitable result. In the end Harley would crush his foes if he set in motion the whole

machinery of his limitless resources. That was Eaton's private opinion, and he was very much of the feeling

"Don't you think we had better consider that answer before we send it, Waring?" he suggested in a low voice.

"I haven't rejected them. I've simply explained that we are doing business on equal terms. Even if I meant to

Eaton knew he must speak now if his protest were to be of any avail. "It would worry me a good deal. He has

Ridgway leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at his friend. "Want to sell out, Steve?"

"If you do, I'll pay anything in reason for your stock." He got up and began to pace the floor with long

deliberate strides. "I'm a born gambler, Steve. It clears my head to take big chances. Give me a good fight on

my hands with the chances against me, and I'm happy. You've got to take the world by the throat and shake

success out of it if you're going to score heavily. That's how Harley made good years ago. Read the story of

his life. See the chances he took. He throttled combinations a dozen times as strong as his. Some people say

he was an accident. Don't you believe it. Accidents like him don't happen. He won because he was the

biggest, brainiest, most daring and unscrupulous operator in the field. That's why I'm going to winif I do

"Well, that's the chance I take," flung back the other as he swung buoyantly across the room. "But YOU don't

need to take it. If you want, you can get out now at the top market price. I feel it in my bones I'm going to

"Good for you, Steve. I knew it. I'll tell you now that I would have hated like hell to see you leave me. You're

The answer was sent, and Eaton's astonishment at his chief's temerity changed to amazement when the great

Harley, pocketing his pride, asked for an appointment, and appeared at the offices of the Mesa

Oreproducing Company at the time set. That Ridgway, who was busy with one of his superintendents,

should actually keep the most powerful man in the country waiting in an outer office while he finished his

"Whom the gods would destroy," he murmured to himself as the only possible explanation, for the reaction of

Nor did his chief's conference with Dalton show any leaning toward compromise. Ridgway had sent for his

engineer to outline a program in regard to some oreveins in the Sherman Bell, that had for months been in

litigation between the two big interests at Mesa. Neither party to the suit had waited for the legal decision, but

each of them had put a large force at work stoping out the ore. Occasional conflicts had occurred when the

men of the opposing factions came in touch, as they frequently did, since crews were at work below and

"Dalton, I was down last night to see that lease of Heyburn's on the twelfth level of the Taurus. The

Consolidated will tap our workings about noon today, just below us. I want you to turn on them the airdrill

pipe as soon as they break through. Have a lot of loose rock there mixed with a barrel of lime. Let loose the

air pressure full on the pile, and give it to their men straight. Follow them up to the end of their own tunnel

when they retreat, and hold it against them. Get control of the levels above and below, too. Throw as many

"Nothing will happen. They're not expecting trouble. But if anything does, I'll see you through. Eaton is your

Ridgway's laugh had a touch of affectionate contempt. "Don't cross bridges till you get to them, Steve.

Haven't you discovered, man, that the bold course is always the safe one? It's the quitter that loses out every

time. The strong man gets there; the weak one falls down. It's as invariable as the law of gravity." He got up

and stretched his broad shoulders in a deep breath. "Now for Mr. Harley. Send him in, Eaton.

That morning Simon Harley had done two things for many years foreign to his experience: He had gone to

meet another man instead of making the man come to him, and he had waited the other man's pleasure in an

Ridgway waved Harley to a chair without rising to meet him. The eyes of the two men fastened, wary and

unwavering. They might have been jungle beasts of prey crouching for the attack, so tense was their

"I have called, Mr. Ridgway, to arrange, if possible, a compromise. I need hardly say this is not my usual

method, but the circumstances are extremely unusual. I rest under so great a personal obligation to you that I

am willing to overlook a certain amount of youthful presumption." His teeth glittered behind a lip smile,

intended to give the right accent to the paternal reproof. "My personal obligation"

"You may eliminate that," retorted the younger man curtly. "You are under no obligations whatever to me."

Ridgway met his eyes directly, cutting his sentence as with a knife. "'Generous' is the last word to use. It is

not a question of generosity at all. What I mean is that the thing I did was done with no reference whatever to

you. It is between me and her alone. I refuse to consider it as a service to you, as having anything at all to do

Harley's spirit winced. This bold claim to a bond with his wife that excluded him, the scornful thrust of his

enemyhe was already beginning to consider him in that light rather than as a victimhad touched the one

point of human weakness in this moneymaking Juggernaut. He saw himself for the moment without

illusions, an old man and an unlovable one, without near kith or kin. He was bitterly aware that the child he

had married had been sold to him by her guardian, under fear of imminent ruin, before her ignorance of the

world had given her experience to judge for herself. The money and the hidden hunger of sentiment he

wasted on her brought him only timid thanks and wan obedience. But for this man, with his hateful, confident

youth, he had seen the warm smile touch her lips and the delicate color rose her cheeks. Nay, he had seen

more her arms around his neck and her, warm breath on his cheek. They had lived romance, these two, in the

days they had been alone together. They had shared danger and the joys of that Bohemia of youth from which

he was forever excluded. It was his resolve to wipe out by financial favorshe could ruin the fellow later if

need beany claims of Ridgway upon her gratitude or her foolish imagination. He did not want the man's

"Yet, the fact remains that it was a service" his thin lips smiled. "I must be the best judge of that, I think. I

want to be perfectly frank, Mr. Ridgway. The Consolidated is an auxiliary enterprise so far as I am

concerned, but I have always made it a rule to look after details when it became necessary. I came to

Montana to crush you. I have always regarded you as a menace to our legitimate interests, and I had quite

determined to make an end of it. You are a good fighter, and you've been on the ground in person, which

counts for a great deal. But you must know that if I give myself to it in earnest, you are a ruined man."

"But you don't believe," added the other quietly. "Many men have heard and not believed. They have

"If you don't mind, I'll buy my experience instead of borrowing it," Ridgway flung back flippantly.

"One moment, Mr. Ridgway. I have told you my purpose in coming to Montana. That purpose no longer

exists. Circumstances have completely altered my intentions. The finger of God is in it. He has not brought us

together thus strangely, except to serve some purpose of His own. I think I see that purpose. 'The stone which

the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our

eyes,'" he quoted unctiously. "I am convinced that it is a waste of good material to crush you; therefore I

desire to effect a consolidation with you, buy all the other copper interests of any importance in the country,

In spite of himself, Ridgway's face betrayed him. It was a magnificent opportunity, the thing he had dreamed

of as the culmination of a lifetime of fighting. Nobody knew better than he on how precarious a footing he

stood, on how slight a rock his fortunes might be wrecked. Here was his chance to enter that charmed,

impregnable inner circle of finance that in effect ruled the nation. That Harley's suave friendliness would bear

watching he did not doubt for a moment, but, once inside, so his vital youth told him proudly, he would see to

it that the billionaire did not betray him. A week ago he could have asked nothing better than this chance to

bloat himself into a someday colossus. But now the thing stuck in his gorge. He understood the implied

obligation. Payment for his service to Aline Harley was to be given, and the ledger balanced. Well, why not?

Had he not spent the night in a chaotic agony of renunciation? But to renounce voluntarily was one thing, to

He looked up and met Harley's thin smile, the smile that on Wall Street was a synonym for rapacity and

heartlessness, in the memory of which men had committed murder and suicide. On the instant there jumped

between him and his ambition the face that had worked magic on him. What a God's pity that such a lamb

should be cast to this ravenous wolf! He felt again her arms creeping round his neck, the divine trust of her

lovely eyes. He had saved her when this man who called himself her husband had left her to perish in the

storm. He had made her happy, as she had never been in all her starved life. Had she not promised never to

forget, and was there not a deeper promise in her wistful eyes that the years could not wipe out? She was his

by every right of natural law. By God! he would not sell his freedom of choice to this white haired robber!

"I seldom make mistakes in my judgment of men, Mr. Ridgway," the oily voice ran on. "No small share of

such success as it has been given me to attain has been due to this instinct for putting my finger on the right

man. I am assured that in you I find one competent for the great work lying before you. The opportunity is

waiting; I furnish it, and you the untiring energy of youth to make the most of the chance." His wolfish smile

bared the tusks for a moment. "I find myself not so young as I was. The great work I have started is well

under way. I must trust its completion to younger and stronger hands than mine. I intend to rest, to devote

myself to my home, more directly to such philanthropic and educational work as God has committed to my

The Westerner gave him look for look, his eyes burning to get over the impasse of the expressionless mask

no man had ever penetrated. He began to see why nobody had ever understood Harley. He knew there would

be no rest for that consuming energy this side of the grave. Yet the man talked as if he believed his own glib

"Consolidated is the watchword of the age; it means elimination of ruinous competition, and consequent

harmony and reduced expense in management. Mr. Ridgway, may I count you with us? Together we should

The younger man rose, leaning forward with his strong, sinewy hands gripping the table. His face was pale

with the repression of a rage that had been growing intense. "I say war, and without quarter. I don't believe

you can beat me. I defy you to the test. And if you shouldeven then I had rather go down fighting you than

Simon Harley had counted acceptance a foregone conclusion, but he never winked a lash at the ringing

challenge of his opponent. He met his defiance with an eye cold and steady as jade.

"As you please, Mr. Ridgway. I wash my hands of your ruin, and when you are nothing but a broken

gambler, you will remember that I offered you the greatest chance that ever came to a man of your age. You

are one of those men, I see, that would rather be first in hell than second in heaven. So be it." He rose and

"Say, rather, that I choose to go to hell my own master and not as the slave of Simon Harley," retorted the

"There is no occasion for dramatics," he said, the cruel, passionless smile at his thin lips. "I make you a

The other strode past him and flung the door open. He had never before known such a passion of hatred as

raged within him. Throughout his life Simon Harley had left in his wake wreckage and despair. He was the

besthated man of his time, execrated by the working classes, despised by the country at large, and distrusted

by his fellow exploiters. Yet, as a business opponent, Ridgway had always taken him impersonally, had

counted him for a condition rather than an individual. But with the new influence that had come into his life,

reason could not reckon, and when it was dominant with him, Harley stood embodied as the wolf ready to

For he couldn't get away from her. Wherever he went he carried with him the picture of her sweet, shy smile,

her sudden winsome moments, the deep light in her violet eyes; and in the background the sinister bared

James K. Mott, local chief attorney for the Consolidated, was struggling with a white tie before the glass and

"This dresssuit habit is the most pernicious I know. It's sapping the liberties of the American people," he

His wife tied it with neatness and dispatch, and returned to the inspection of how her skirt hung.

"Mr. Harley asked me to thank you for calling on his wife. He says she gets lonesome during the day while

he is away so much. I was wondering if you couldn't do something for her so that she could meet some of the

ladies of Mesa. A luncheon, or something of that sort, you know. Have you seen my hatbrush anywhere?"

"It's on that drawer beside your hatbox. She told me she would rather not. I suggested it. But I'll tell you

what I could do: take Virginia Balfour round to see her. She's lively and good company, and knows some of

"That's a good idea. I want Harley to know that we appreciate his suggestions, and are ready to do our part.

He has shown a disposition to consult me on a good many things that ought to lie in Hobart's sphere rather

than mine. Something's going to drop. Now, I like Hobart, but I want to show myself in a receptive mood for

* * * * * * * Virginia responded eagerly to Mrs. Mott's suggestion that they call together on Mrs. Harley at

"My dear, you have saved my life. I've been dying of curiosity, and I haven't been able to find vestige of an

excuse to hang my call on. I couldn't ask Mr. Ridgway to introduce me, could I?"

"No, I don't see that you could," smiled Mrs. Mott, a motherly little woman with pleasant brown eyes. "I

suppose Mr. Ridgway isn't exactly on calling terms with Mr. Harley's wife, even if he did save her life."

"Oh, Mr. Ridgway isn't the man to let a little thing like a war a outrance stand in the way of his social duties,

especially when those duties happen to be inclinations, too. I understand he DID call the evening of their

"He didn't!" screamed Mrs. Mott, who happened to possess a voice of the normal national register. "And what

"Ah, that's what one would like to know. My informant deponeth not beyond the fact unadorned. One may

guess there must have been undercurrents of embarrassment almost as pronounced as if the President were to

invite his Ananias Club to a pink tea. I can imagine Mr. Harley saying: 'Try this cake, Mr. Ridgway; it isn't

Miss Balfour's anxiety to meet the young woman her fiance had rescued from the blizzard was not unnatural.

Her curiosity was tinged with frank envy, though jealousy did not enter into it at all. Virginia had come West

explicitly to take the country as she found it, and she had found it, unfortunately, no more hazardous than

little old New York, though certainly a good deal more diverting to a young woman with democratic

proclivities that still survived the energetic weeding her training had subjected them to.

She did not quite know what she had expected to find in Mesa. Certainly she knew that Indians were no

longer on the map, and cowboys were kicking up their last dust before vanishing, but she had supposed that

they had left compensations in their wake. On the principle that adventures are to the adventurous, her life

But what happened? She took all sorts of chances without anything coming of it. Her pirate fiance was the

nearest approach to an adventure she had flushed, and this pinkandwhite chit of a married schoolgirl had

borrowed him for the most splendid bit of excitement that would happen in a hundred years. She had been

spinning around the country in motorcars for months without the sign of a blizzard, but the chit had hit one

the first time. It wasn't fair. That was her blizzard by rights. In spirit, at least, she had "spoken for it," as she

and her brother used to say when they were children of some coveted treasure not yet available. Virginia was

quite sure that if she had seen Waring Ridgway at the inspired moment when he was plowing through the

drifts with Mrs. Harley in his armsonly, of course, it would have been she instead of Mrs. Harley, and he

would not have been carrying her so long as she could stand and take itshe would have fallen in love with

him on the spot. And those two days in the cabin on halfration they would have put an end forever to her

doubts and to that vision of Lyndon Hobart that persisted in her mind. What luck glace' some people did

But Virginia discovered the chit to be rather a different personality than she had supposed. In truth, she lost

her heart to her at once. She could have stood out against Aline's mere good looks and been the stiffer for

them. She was no MAN, to be moved by the dark hair's dusky glory, the charm of soft girlish lines, the effect

of shy unsophistication that might be merely the highest art of social experience. But back of the sweet,

trembling mouth that seemed to be asking to be kissed, of the pathetic appeal for friendliness from the big,

deep violet eyes, was a quality of soul not to be counterfeited. Miss Balfour had furbished up the distant

hauteur of the society manner she had at times used effectively, but she found herself instead taking the

Aline clung to this gracious young queen as if she had known her a lifetime. "You are so good to me

everybody is. You know how Mr. Ridgway saved me. If it had not been for him I should have died. I didn't

"His tenderness, his unselfishness, his consideration for othersdid you ever know anybody like him for

"Never," agreed Virginia, with the mental reservations that usually accompanied her skeptical smile. She was

"I count it a great privilege," said Miss Balfour absently, but she pulled up with a hurried addendum: "To

It was a relief to Aline to talk, to put into words the external skeleton facts of the surging current that had

engulfed her existence since she had turned a corner upon this unexpected consciousness of life running

strong and deep. Harley was not a confidant she could have chosen under the most favorable circumstances,

and her instinct told her that in this matter he was particularly impossible. But to Virginia BalfourMrs.

Mott had to leave early to preside over the Mesa Woman's Club, and her friend allowed herself to be

persuaded to stay longershe did not find it at all hard to talk. Indeed, she murmured into the sympathetic

ear of this astute young searcher of hearts more than her words alone said, with the result that Virginia

guessed what she herself had not yet quite found out, though her heart was hovering tremblingly on the brink

But Virginia's sympathy for the trouble fate had in store for this helpless innocent consisted with an alert

appreciation of its obvious relation to herself. What she meant to discover was the attitude toward the

situation of one neither particularly innocent nor helpless. Was he, too, about to be "caught in the coil of a

God's romances," or was he merely playing on the vibrating strings of an untaught heart?

It was in part to satisfy this craving for knowledge that she wrote Ridgway a note as soon as she reached

MY DEAR RECREANT LAGGARD: If you are not too busy playing Sir Lancelot to fair dames in distress,

or splintering lances with the doughty husbands of these same ladies, I pray you deign to allow your servant

to feast her eyes upon her lord's face. Hopefully and gratefully yours, VIRGINIA.

P. S.Have you forgotten, sir, that I have not seen you since that terrible blizzard and your dreadful

P. P. S.I have seen somebody else, though. She's a dear, and full of your praises. I hardly blame you.

"My social duties? Oh, I see!" He laughed appreciation of her hit. Evidently through her visit she knew a

good deal more than he had expected. Since he had nothing to hide from her except his feelings, this did not

She sympathized with him elaborately. "Calls of that sort do bore men so. I'll not forget the first time you

"I marveled how you came through alive, but I learned then that a man can't be bored to death."

"I have never heard it used so before. Anyhow, it is a little hackneyed for anybody so original as you."

"The same as he does others. A hard, ruthless fighter. Unless all signs fail, he is an implacable foe."

"A burglara reformed burglar!" She gave him a saucy flash of her dark eyes. "Do you think I don't know

any lawbreakers except those I have met in this State? I came across this one in a mission where I used to

think I was doing good. He said it was not the remuneration of the profession that had attracted him, but the

excitement. It was dreadfully frowned down upon and underpaid. He could earn more at his old trade of a

locksmith, but it seemed to him that every impediment to success was a challenge to him. Poor man, he

relapsed again, and they put him in Sing Sing. I was so interested in him, too."

"You've had some queer friends in your time," he laughed, but without a trace of disapproval.

Her inextinguishable gaiety brought back the smile he liked. "We'll talk of SOME ONE elsesome one of

"I am always ready to talk of Miss Virginia Balfour," he said, misunderstanding promptly.

"That's how you lookvery well, indeed. I believe the storm was greatly exaggerated," she remarked.

"Isn't that rather a good definition for a blizzarda greatly exaggerated storm?"

"Thank you. I have no doubt you find the sight of my dear face as refreshing as your favorite cocktail. I

suppose that is why it has taken you three days after your return to reach me and then by special request."

Miss Balfour made a different application of his text, her eyes trained on him with apparent indifference.

"I've been enjoying a delayed pleasure myself. I went to see her this afternoon."

"An interesting thing about you is your point of view. Now, anybody else would tell me I ought to be

"I'm not worried about your morals," she scoffed. "It's that poor child I'm thinking of."

"Yes. You see I'm her confidante." She told it him with sparkling eyes, for the piquancy of it amused her. Not

every engaged young woman can hear her lover's praises sung by the woman whose life he has saved with

"I think I'll tell her about you, thoughjust what a ruthless barbarian you are."

His eyes gleamed "I wish you would. I'd like to find out whether she would believe you. I have tried to tell

"You haven't any right to let her know you are interested in her." She interrupted him before he could speak.

"I don't mind so much your being in love with HER, though it's not flattering to my vanity, but " She

He wondered how much Aline had told this confidante. Certain specific things he knew she had not revealed,

She compromised with her conscience. "I don't know. She is romanticand Simon Harley isn't a very fertile

"Oh, you have points, and nobody knows them better than Waring Ridgway," she told him jauntily. "But you

needn't play that role to the address of Aline Harley. Try ME. I'm immune to romance. Besides, I'm engaged

to you," she added, laughing at the inconsequence the fact seemed to have for both of them.

"I'm afraid I can't help the situation, for if I've been playing a part, it has been an unconscious one."

"That's the worst of it. When you star as Waring Ridgway you are most dangerous. What I want is total

Virginia dimpled, a gleam of reminiscent laughter in her eyes. "When I was in Denver last month a Mrs.

Smytheit was Smith before her husband struck it rich last yearsent out cards for a bridge afternoon. A

Mrs. Mahoney had just come to the metropolis from the wilds of Cripple Creek. Her husband had struck a

goldmine, too, and Mr. Smythe was under obligations to him. Anyhow, she was a stranger, and Mrs.

Smythe took her in. It was Mrs. Mahoney's introduction to bridge, and she did not know she was playing for

keeps. When the afternoon was over, Mrs. Smythe hovered about her with the sweetest sympathy. 'So sorry

you had such a horrid run of cards, dear. Better luck next time.' It took Mrs. Mahoney some time to

understand that her social afternoon had cost one hundred and twenty dollars, but next day her husband sent a

check for one hundred and twentytwo dollars to Mrs. Smythe. The extra two dollars were for the

refreshments, he naively explained, adding that since his wife was so poor a gambler as hardly to be able to

keep professionals interested, he would not feel offended if Mrs. Smythe omitted her in future from her social

Ridgway took it with a smile. "Simon Harley brought his one hundred and twentytwo dollars in person."

"This morning. He proposed benevolent assimilation as a solution of our troubles."

"He offered to consolidate all the copper interests of the country and put me at the head of the resulting

She clapped her hands softly. "Well done, Waring Ridgway! There are times when you are magnificent,

when I could put you on a pedestal, you great big, unafraid man. But you mustn't play with her, just the

He frowned past her into space, his tightshut jaw standing out saliently. "You're right, Virginia. I've been

"Well, I know where there's another," he said. "I ought to think myself a lucky dog."

Virginia lifted quizzical eyebrows. "Ought to! That tastes of duty. Don't let it come to that. We'll take it off if

Aline pulled her horse to a walk. "You know Mr. Ridgway pretty well, don't you?"

Miss Balfour gently flicked her divided skirt with a ridingwhip, considering whether she might be said to

"Mrs. Mott says you and he are great friends, that you seem very fond of each other."

"Goodness me! I hope I don't seem fond of him. I don't think 'fond' is exactly the word, anyway, though we

are good friends." Quickly, keenly, her covert glance swept Aline; then, withdrawing her eyes, she flung her

little bomb. "I suppose we may be said to appreciate each other. At any rate, we are engaged."

Mrs. Harley's pony came to an abrupt halt. "I thought I had dropped my whip," she explained, in a low voice

Virginia, though she executed an elaborate survey of the scenery, could not help noticing that the color had

washed from her friend's face. "I love this Western countryits big sweep of plains, of low, rolling hills,

with a background of mountains. One can see how it gets into a man's blood so that the East seems insipid

"Do you mean that you are engaged to himthat you are going to marry Mr. Ridgwaywithout caring for

"Butdo you love him?" It was almost a crythese low words wrung from the tortured heart.

Aline rode in silence, her stricken face full of trouble. How could she, from her glass house, throw stones at a

loveless marriage? But this was different from her own case! Nobody was worthy to marry her hero without

giving the best a woman had to give. If she were a girla sudden tide of color swept her face; a wild,

delirious tingle of joy flooded her veinsoh, if she were a girl, what a wealth of love could she give him!

Clarity of vision had come to her in a blinding flash. Untutored of life, the knowledge of its meaning had

struck home of the suddenest. She knew her heart now that it was too late; knew that she could never be

Aline caught at the courage behind her childishness, and accomplished her congratulations "You will be

"Goodness does not impress me as his most outstanding quality," smiled Miss Balfour.

"No, one never feels it emphasized. He is too He is too free of selfishness to make much of his goodness. But

"I don't think Mr. Harley understands him. I can't help thinking that he is prejudiced." She was becoming

"Perhaps I am. In my thought of him he would still be good, even if he had done all the bad things his

Virginia gave her up. This idealized interpretation of her betrothed was not the one she had, but for Aline it

might be the true one. At least, she could not disparage him very consistently under the circumstances.

"Isn't there a philosophy current that we find in people what we look for in them? Perhaps that is why you

and Mr. Harley read in Mr. Ridgway men so diverse as you do. It is not impossible you are both right and

both wrong. Heaven knows, I suppose. At least, we poor mortals fog around enough when we sit in

But Aline seemed to have a difficulty in getting away from the subject. "And youwhat do you read?" she

"Sometimes one thing and sometimes another. Today I see him as a living refutation of all the copybook

rules to success. He shatters the maxims with a touchandgo manner that is fascinating in its immorality. A

gambler, a plunger, an adventurer, he wins when a careful, honest business man would fail to a certainty."

Aline was amazed. "You misjudge him. I am sure you do. But if you think this of him why"

"Why do I marry him? I have asked myself that a hundred times, my dear. I wish I knew. I have told you

what I see in him today; but tomorrowwhy, tomorrow I shall see him an altogether different man. He

will be perhaps a radiating center of altruism, devoted to his friends, a levelheaded protector of the working

classes, a patron of the arts in his own clearminded, unlettered way. But whatever point of view one gets at

him, he spares one dullness. Will you explain to me, my dear, why picturesque rascality is so much more

Mrs. Harley's eyes blazed. "And you can talk this way of the man you are going to marry, a man" She

Miss Balfour was cool as a custard. "I can, my dear, and without the least disloyalty. In point of fact, he asked

"He asked youto tell me this about him?" Aline pulled in her pony in order to read with her astonished

"Yes. He was afraid you were making too much of his saving you. He thinks he won't do to set on a

"Don't invest too heavily on his modesty, my dear. He wouldn't be the man he is if he owned much of that

"Yes, the man born to win, the man certain of himself no matter what the odds against him.

He knows he is a man of destiny; knows quite well that there is something big about him that dwarfs other

men. I know it, too. Wherefore I seize my opportunity. It would be a sin to let a man like that get away from

"Don't you see any human, lovable things in him?" Aline's voice was an accusation.

"He is the staunchest friend conceivable. No trouble is too great for him to take for one he likes, and where

once he gives his trust he does not take it back. Oh, for all his force, he is intensely human! Take his vanity,

"That's because you are a triumph of the survival of nature and impulse over civilization, in spite of its

attempts to sap your freshness. For me, I fear I'm a sophisticated daughter of a critical generation. If I weren't,

I should not hold my judgment so safely in my own keeping, but would surrender it and my heart."

"There is something about the way you look at him that shocks me. One ought not to let oneself believe all

"That is your faith, but mine is a different one. You see, I'm a Unitarian," returned Virginia blithely.

"He will make you love him if you marry him," sighed Aline, coming back to her obsession.

Virginia nodded eagerly. "In my secret heart that is what I am hoping for, my dear."

Virginia was irritably aware of a flood of color beating into her cheeks. "There isn't any other man," she said

Yet she thought of Lyndon Hobart. Curiously enough, whenever she conceived herself as marrying Ridgway,

the reflex of her brain carried to her a picture of Hobart, cleanhanded, fine of instinct, with the inherited

inflections of voice and unconscious pride of caste that come from breeding and not from cultivation. If he

were not born to greatness, like his rival, at least he satisfied her critical judgment of what a gentleman should

be; and she was quite sure that the potential capacity lay in her to care a good deal more for him than for

anybody else she had met. Since it was not on the cards, as Miss Virginia had shuffled the pack, that she

should marry primarily for reasons sentimental, this annoyed her in her sophisticated hours.

But in the hours when she was a mere girl when she was not so confidently the heir of all the feminine

wisdom of the ages, her annoyance took another form. She had told Lyndon Hobart of her engagement

because it was the honest thing to do; because she supposed she ought to discourage any hopes he might be

entertaining. But it did not follow that he need have let these hopes be extinguished so summarily. She could

have wished his scrupulous regard for the proper thing had not had the effect of taking him so completely out

of her external life, while leaving him more insistently than ever the subject of her inner contemplation.

Virginia's conscience was of the twentieth century and American, though she was a good deal more honest

with herself than most of her sex in the same social circle. Also she was straightforward with her neighbors

so far as she could reasonably be. But she was not a Puritan in the least, though she held herself to a more

rigid account than she did her friends. She judged her betrothed as little as she could, but this was not to be

entirely avoided, since she expected her life to become merged so largely in his. There were hours when she

felt she must escape the blighting influence of his lawlessness. There were others when it seemed to her

Except for the occasional jangle of a bit or the ring of a horse's shoe on a stone, there was silence which

lasted many minutes. Each was busy with her thoughts, and the narrowness of the trail, which here made

"Perhaps we had better turn back," suggested Virginia, after the path had descended to a gulch and merged

itself in a wagonroad. "We shall have no more than time to get home and dress for dinner."

"Do you know much about the difficulty between Mr. Harley and Mr. Ridgway? I mean about the

"I know something about the trouble in a general way. Both the Consolidated and Mr. Ridgway's company

"I don't know anything about business. Mr. Harley does not tell me anything about his. To day I was sitting in

the open window, and two men stopped beneath it. They thought there would be trouble in this minethat

men would be hurt. I could not make it all out, but that was part of it. I sent for Mr. Harley and made him tell

"Don't worry your head about it, my dear. Things are always threatening and never happening. It seems to be

Virginia observed that she looked both sad and weary. She had started on her ride like a prisoner released

from his dungeon, happy in the sunshine, the swift motion, the sting of the wind in her face. There had been a

sparkle in her eye and a ring of gaiety in her laugh. Into her cheeks a faint color had glowed, so that the

contrast of their clear pallor with the vivid scarlet of the little lips had been less pronounced than usual. But

now she was listless and distraite, the girlish abandon all stricken out of her. It needed no clairvoyant to see

that her heart was heavy and that she was longing for the moment when she could be alone with her pain.

Her friend had learned what she wanted to know, and the knowledge of it troubled her. She would have given

a good deal to have been able to lift this sorrow from the girl riding beside her. For she was aware that Aline

Harley might as well have reached for the moon as that toward which her untutored heart yearned. She had

come to life late and traveled in it but a little way. Yet the tragedy of it was about to engulf her. No lifeboat

was in sight. She must sink or swim alone. Virginia's unspoiled heart went out to her with a rush of pity and

But she spoke instead with laughter and lightness, seeing nothing of the girl's distress, at least, until after they

After Ridgway's cavalier refusal to negotiate a peace treaty, Simon Harley and his bodyguard walked back

to the offices of the Consolidated, where they arrived at the same time as the news of the enemy's first blow

Hobart was at his desk with his ear to the telephone receiver when the great financier came into the inner

"Yes. When? Driven out, you say? Yesyes. Anybody hurt? Followed our men through into our tunnel? No,

don't do anything till you hear from me. Send Rhys up at once. Let me know any further developments that

Hobart hung up the receiver and turned on his swivelchair toward his chief. "Another outrage, sir, at the

hands of Ridgway. It is in regard to those veins in the Copper King that he claims. Dalton, his superintendent

of the Taurus, drove a tunnel across our lateral lines and began working them, though their own judge has not

Of course, I put a large force in them at once. Today we tapped their workings at the twelfth level. Our

foreman, Miles, has just telephoned me that Dalton turned the air pressure on our men, blew out their candles,

and flung a mixture of lime and rocks at them. Several of the men are hurt, though none badly. It seems that

Dalton has thrown a force into our tunnels and is holding the entrances against us at the point where the

eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth levels touch the cage. It means that he will work those veins, and probably

others that are acknowledged to be ours, unless we drive them out, which would probably be a difficult

Harley listened patiently, eyes glittering and cleanshaven lips pressed tightly against his teeth. "What do you

"I haven't decided yet. If we could get any justice from the courts, an injunction "

"Can't be got from Purcell. Don't waste time considering it. Fight it out yourself. Find his weakest spot, then

strike hard and suddenly." Harley's low metallic voice was crisp and commanding.

"There is the Taurus. It lies against the Copper King end to end. He drove a tunnel into some of our workings

last winter. That would give a passageway to send our men through, if we decide to do so. Then there is his

"Good! Send as many men through as is necessary to capture and hold both mines. Get control of the entire

workings of them both, and begin taking ore out at once. Station armed guards at every point where it is

necessary, and as many as are necessary. Use ten thousand men, if you need that many. But don't fail. We'll

give Ridgway a dose of his own medicine, and teach him that for every pound of our ore he steals we'll take

"Let him get forty. I'll show him that his robber courts will not save him. Anyhow, we'll cross that bridge

Hobart, almost swept from his moorings by the fiery energy of his chief, braced himself to withstand the

"I shall have to think about that. We can't fight lawlessness with lawlessness except for selfpreservation."

"Think! You do nothing but think, Mr. Hobart. You are here to act," came the scornful retort; "And what is

"I am willing to recapture our workings in the Copper King. I'll lead the attack in person, sir. But as to a

retaliatory attackthe facts will not justify a capture of his property because he has seized ours."

"Wrong, sir. This is no time for halfway measures. I have resolved to crush this freebooter; since he has

Hobart rose from his seat, very pale and erect. His eyes met those of the great man unflinchingly. "You

realize that this may mean murder, Mr. Harley? That a clash cannot possibly be avoided if you pursue this

"I realize that it is selfpreservation," came the cold retort. "There is no law here, none, at least, that gives us

justice. We are back to savagery, dragged back by the madness of this ruffian. It is his choice, not mine. Let

"In that case, I must regretfully offer my resignation as manager of the Consolidated."

"It is accepted, Mr. Hobart. I can't have men working under me that are not loyal, body and soul, to the hand

"That is why I resign, Mr. Harley. You give me the devil's work to do. I have done enough of it. By Heaven, I

will be a free man hereafter." The disgust and dissatisfaction that had been pent within him for many a month

broke forth hot from the lips of this selfrepressed man. "It is all wrong on both sides. Two wrongs do not

make a right. The system of espionage we employ over everybody both on his side and ours, the tyrannical

use we make of our power, the corruption we foster in politics, our secret bargains with railroads, our

evasions of law as to taxes, and in every other way that suits us: it is all wrongall wrong. I'll be a party to it

no longer. You see to what it leadsmurder and anarchy. I'll be a poor man if I must, but I'll be a free and

"You are talking wickedly and wildly, Mr. Hobart. You are criticizing God when you criticize the business

conditions he has put into the world. I did not know that you were a socialist, but what you have just said

"I am not a socialist, Mr. Harley, but you and your methods have made thousands upon thousands of them in

"We shall not discuss that, Mr. Hobart, nor, indeed, is any discussion necessary. Frankly, I am greatly

disappointed in you. I have for some time been dissatisfied with your management, but I did not, of course,

know you held these anarchistic views. I want, however, to be perfectly just. You are a very good business

man indeed, careful and thorough. That you have not a bold enough grasp of mind for the place you hold is

due, perhaps, to these dangerous ideas that have unsettled you. Your salary will be continued for six months.

"No, sir. I could not be willing to accept it longer than today. And when you say bold enough, why not be

"As you like. I don't juggle with words. The point is, you don't succeed. This adventurer, Ridgway, scores

continually against you. He has beaten you clear down the line from start to finish. Is that not true?"

"Precisely. You have given the very reason why he must be fought in the same spirit. Business ethics would

"You would then have had me stoop to any petty meanness to win, no matter how contemptible?"

The New Yorker waved him aside with a patient, benignant gesture. "I don't care for excuses. I ask of my

Hobart bowed with fine dignity. The touch of disdain in his slight smile marked his sense of the difference

"Can you arrange to allow my resignation to take effect as soon as possible? I should prefer to have my

connection with the company severed before any action is taken against these mines."

"At oncetoday. Your resignation may be published in the Herald this afternoon, and you will then be

"Thank you." Hobart hesitated an instant before he said: "There is a point that I have already mentioned to

you which, with your permission, I must again advert to. The temper of the miners has been very bitter since

you refused to agree to Mr. Ridgway's proposal for an eighthour day. I would urge upon you to take greater

precautions against a personal attack. You have many lawless men among your employees. They are

foreigners for the most part, unused to selfrestraint. It is only right you should know they execrate your

The great man smiled blandly. "Popularity is nothing to me. I have neither sought it nor desired it. Given a

great work to do, with the Divine help I have done it, irrespective of public clamor. For many years I have

lived in the midst of alarms, Mr. Hobart. I am not foolhardy. What precautions I can reasonably take I do. For

the rest, my confidence is in an allwise Providence. It is written that not even a sparrow falls without His

decree. In that promise I put my trust. If I am to be cut off it can only be by His will. 'The Lord gave, and the

Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' Such, I pray, may be the humble and grateful spirit

The retiring manager urged the point no further. "If you have decided upon my successor and he is on the

ground I shall be glad to give the afternoon to running over with him the affairs of the office. It would be well

"Mr. Mott will succeed you. He will no doubt be glad to have your assistance in helping him fall into the

Harley sent for Mott at once and told him of his promotion. The two men were closeted together for hours,

while trusted messengers went and came incessantly to and from the mines. Hobart knew, of course, that

plans were in progress to arm such of the Consolidated men as could be trusted, and that arrangements were

being made to rush the Taurus and the New York. Everything was being done as secretly as possible, but

Hobart's experience of Ridgway made it obvious to him that this excessive activity could not pass without

It was not till midafternoon of the next day that Mott found time to join him and run over with him the

details of such unfinished business as the office had taken up. The retiring manager was courtesy itself, nor

did he feel any bitterness against his successor. Nevertheless, he came to the end of office hours with great

relief. The day had been a very hard one, and it left him with a longing for solitude and the wide silent spaces

of the open hills. He struck out in the direction which promised him the quickest opportunity to leave the

town behind him. A good walker, he covered the miles rapidly, and under the physical satisfaction of the

tramp the brain knots unraveled and smoothed themselves out. It was better sobetter to live his own life

than the one into which he was being ground by the inexorable facts of his environment. He was a young man

and ambitious, but his hopes were not selfish. At bottom he was an idealist, though a practical one. He had

had to shut his eyes to many things which he deplored, had been driven to compromises which he despised.

Essentially cleanhanded, the soul of him had begun to wither at the contact of that which he saw about him

"I am not fit for it. That is the truth. Mott has no imagination, and property rights are the most sacred thing on

earth to him. He will do better at it than I," he told himself, as he walked forward bareheaded into the great

As he swung round a bend in the road a voice, clear and sweet. came to him through the light filtered air.

young woman on horseback was before him. Her pony stood across the road, and she looked up a trail which

ran down into it. The lifted poise of the head brought out its fine lines and the distinction with which it was

set upon the wellmolded throat column. Apparently she was calling to some companion on the trail who had

"Good afternoon, Mr. Hobart," she said quietly, as coolly as if her heart had not suddenly begun to beat

Each of them was acutely conscious of the barrier between them. Since the day when she had told him of her

engagement they had not met, even casually, and this their first sight of each other was not without

"We have been to Lone Pine Cone," she said rather hurriedly, to bridge an impending silence.

But there was something she wanted to say to him, and the time for saying it, before the arrival of her

"I don't usually read the papers very closely, but this morning I read both the Herald and the Sun. Did you get

"I sent it by mail. I wanted you to know that your friends are proud of you. We know why you resigned. It is

"Even the Sun recognizes that it was because you are too good a man for the place."

"Praise from the Sun has rarely shone my way," he said, with a touch of irony, for that paper was controlled

Her impulsive sympathy for this man whom she so greatly liked would not accept the rebuff imposed by this

reticence. She stripped the gauntlet from her hand and offered it in congratulation.

"I have done nothing worthy of praise. One cannot ask less of a man than that he remain independent and

honest. I couldn't do that and stay with the Consolidated, or, so it seemed to me. So I resigned. That is all

"It is enough. I don't know another man would have done it, would have had the courage to do it after his feet

were set so securely in the way of success. The trouble with Americans is that they want too much success.

"Success in life and success in living aren't the same thing. It is because you have discovered this that you

have sacrificed the less for the greater." She smiled, and added: "I didn't mean that to sound as preachy as it

"I'm afraid you make too much of a small thing. My squeamishness has probably made me the

"If so, that is to the discredit of Mesa," she insisted stanchly. "But I don't think so. A great many people who

Another pony, which had been slithering down the steep trail in the midst of a small rock slide, now brought

its rider safely to a halt in the road. Virginia introduced them, and Hobart, remembered that he had heard

Miss Balfour speak of a young woman whom she had met on the way out, a Miss Laska Lowe, who was

coming to Mesa to teach domestic science in the public schools. There was something about the young

teacher's looks that he liked, though she was of a very different type than Virginia. Not at all pretty in any

accepted sense, she yet had a charm born of the vital honesty in her. She looked directly at one out of sincere

gray eyes, wideawake and fearless. As it happened, her friend had been telling her about Hobart, and she

was interested in him from the first. For she was of that minority which lives not by bread alone, and she felt

a glow of pride in the man who could do what the Sun had given this man credit for editorially.

They talked at haphazard for a few minutes before the young women cantered away. As Hobart trudged

homeward he knew that in the eyes of these two women, at least, he had not been a fool.

Tucked away in an obscure corner of the same issue of the papers which announced the resignation of

Lyndon Hobart as manager of the Consolidated properties, and the appointment of James K. Mott as his

temporary successor, were little onestick paragraphs regarding explosions, which had occurred the night

before in tunnels of the Taurus and the New York. The general public paid little attention to these, but those

on the inside knew that Ridgway had scored again. His spies had carried the news to him of the projected

capture of these two properties by the enemy. Instead of attempting to defend them by force, he had set of

charges of giant powder which had brought down the tunnel roofs and effectually blocked the entrances from

With the indefatigable patience which characterized him, Harley set about having the passages cleared of the

rock and timber with which they were filled. Before he had succeeded in doing this his enemy struck another

telling blow. From Judge Purcell he secured an injunction against the Consolidated from working its mines,

the Diamond King, the Mary K, and the Marcus Daly, on the absurd contention that the principal orevein of

the Marcus Daly apexed on the tin, triangle wedged in between these three great mines, and called by

Ridgway the Trust Buster. Though there was not room enough upon this fragment to sink a shaft, it was large

enough to found this claim of a vein widening as it descended until it crossed into the territory of each of

these properties. Though Harley could ignore court injunctions which erected only underground territory, he

was forced to respect this one, since it could not be violated except in the eyes of the whole country. The

three mines closed down, and several thousand workmen were thrown out of employment. These were

immediately reemployed by Ridgway and set to work both in his own and the Consolidated's territory.

Within a week a dozen new suits were instituted against the Consolidated by its enemy. He harassed it by

contempt proceedings, by applications for receiverships, and by other ingenious devices, which greatly

tormented the New York operator. For the first time in his life the courts, which Harley had used to much

advantage in his battles to maintain and extend the trusts he controlled, could not be used even to get scant

Meanwhile both leaders were turning their attention to the political situation. The legislators were beginning

to gather for the coming session, and already the city was full of rumors about corruption. For both the

Consolidated and its enemy were making every effort to secure enough votes to win the election of a friendly

United States senator. The man chosen would have the distribution of the federal patronage of the State. This

meant the control of the most influential local politicians of the party in power at Washington as well as their

followers, an almost vital factor for success in a State where political corruption had so interwoven itself into

The hotel lobbies were filled with politicians gathered from every county in the State. Big bronzed cattlemen

brushed shoulders with budding lawyers from country towns and ward bosses from the larger cities. The bars

were working overtime, and the steady movement of figures in the corridors lasted all day and most of the

night. Here and there were collected groups, laughing and talking about the old frontier days, or commenting

in lowered tones on some phase of the feverish excitement that was already beginning to be apparent.

Elevators shot up and down, subtracting and adding to the kaleidoscope of human life in the rotundas.

Bellboys hurried to and fro with messages and cocktails. The ring of the telephonebell cut occasionally into

For it was known that Simon Harley had sent for $300,000 in cold cash to secure the election of his

candidate, Roger D. Warner, a lawyer who had all his life been close to corporate interests. It was known,

too, that Waring Ridgway had gathered together every element in the State that opposed the domination of

the Consolidated, to fight their man to a finish. Bets for large sums were offered and taken as to the result,

heavy odds being given in favor of the big copper trust's candidate. For throughout the State at large the

Consolidated influence was very great indeed. It owned forest lands and railroads and mines. It controlled

local transportation largely. Nearly onehalf the working men in the State were in its employ. Into every

town and village the ramifications of its political organization extended. The feeling against it was very bitter,

but this was usually expressed in whispers. For it was in a position to ruin almost any business man upon

whom it fastened a grudge, and to make wealthy any upon whom it chose to cast its favors.

Nevertheless, there were some not so sure that the Consolidated would succeed in electing its man. Since

Ridgway had announced himself as a candidate there had been signs of defection on the part of some of those

expected to vote for Warner. He had skillfully wielded together in opposition to the trust all the elements of

the State that were hostile to it; and already the word was being passed that he had not come to the campaign

The balloting for United States senator was not to begin until the eighth day of the session, but the opening

week was full of a tense and suppressed excitement. It was known that agents of both sides were moving to

and fro among the representatives and State senators, offering fabulous prices for their votes and the votes of

any others they might be able to control. Men who had come to the capital confident in their strength and

integrity now looked at their neighbors furtively and guiltily. Day by day the legislators were being

debauched to serve the interest of the factions which were fighting for control of the State. Night after night

secret meetings were being held in outoftheway places to seduce those who clung desperately to their

honesty or held out for a bigger price. Bribery was in the air, rampant, unashamed. Thousanddollar bills

Sam Yesler, commenting on the situation to his friend Jack Roper, a fellow member of the legislature who

had been a cattleman from the time he had given up driving a stage thirty years before, shook his head

"I tell you, Jack, a man has to be bedrocked in honesty or he's gone. Think of it. A country lawyer comes

here who has never seen five thousand dollars in a lump sum, and they shove fifteen thousand at him for his

vote. He is poor, ambitious, struggling along from hand to mouth. I reckon we ain't in a position to judge that

poor devil of a harassed fellow. Mebbe he's always been on the square, came here to do what was right, we'll

say, but he sees corruption all round him. How can he help getting a warped notion of things? He sees his

friends and his neighbors falling by the wayside. By God, it's got to the point in this legislature that an honest

"That's right," agreed Roper. "Easy enough for us to be square. We got good ranches back of us and can

spend the winter playing poker at the Mesa Club if we feel like it. But if we stood where Billy George and

Garner and Roberts and Munz do, I ain't so damn sure my virtue would stand the strain. Can you reach that

"Billy George has got a sick wife, and he's been wanting to send her back to her folks in the East, but he

couldn't afford it. The doctors figured she ought to stay a year, and Billy would have to hire a woman to take

care of his kids. I said to him: 'Hell, Billy, what's a friend for?' And I shoves a check at him. He wouldn't look

at it; said he didn't know whether he could ever pay it, and he had not come down to charity yet."

"Billy's a white man. That's what makes me sick. Right on top of all his bad luck he comes here and sees that

everybody is getting a big roll. He thinks of that whitefaced wife of his dragging herself round among the

kids and dying by inches for lack of what money can buy her. I tell you I don't blame him. It's the fellows

"I see that hound Pelton's mighty active in it. He's got it in for Ridgway since Waring threw him down, and

he's plugging night and day for Warner. Stays pretty well tanked up. Hopper tells me he's been making threats

"I heard that and told Waring. He laughed and said he hoped he would live till Pelton killed him. I like

Waring. He's got the guts, as his miners say. But he's away off on this fight. He's using money right and left

Yesler nodded. "The whole town's corrupted. It takes bribery for granted. Men meet on the street and ask

"I heard that a chambermaid at the Quartzite Hotel found seven thousand dollars in big bills pinned to the

bottom of a mattress in Garner's room yesterday. He didn't dare bank it, of course."

"Poor devil! He's another man that would like to be honest, but with the whole place impregnated with

bribery he couldn't stand the pressure. But after this is all over he'll go home to his wife and his neighbors

with the canker of this thing at his heart until he dies. I tell you, Jack, I'm for stopping it if we can."

"There's one way. I've been approached indirectly by Pelton, to deliver our vote to the Consolidated. Suppose

They were alone in a private diningroom of a restaurant, but Yesler's voice had fallen almost to a whisper.

With his steady gray eyes he looked across at the man who had ridden the range with him fifteen years ago

Roper tugged at his long drooping mustache and gazed at his friend. "It's a large order, Sam, a devilish large

"I think so. There are six of us that will stand pat at any cost. If we play our cards right and keep mum the

surprise of it is bound to shake votes loose when we spring the bomb. The whole point is whether we can take

advantage of that surprise to elect a decent man. I don't say it can be done, but there's a chance of it."

The old stagedriver laughed softly. "We'll be damned good and plenty by both sides."

"Of course. It won't be a pleasant thing to do, but then it isn't exactly pleasant to sit quiet and let these

"We had better not talk it over here. Come to my room after dinner and bring Landor and James with you. I'll

have Reedy and Keller there. I'll mention casually that it's a big game of poker, and I'll have cards and drinks

sent up. You want to remember we can't be too careful. If it leaks out we lose."

"That would be better. I ain't so sure about Reedy, either. He's straight as a string, of course; not a crooked

"You're right. We'll leave him out, too, until the last minute. There's another thing I've thought of. Ridgway

can't win. At least I don't see how he can control more than twenty five votes. Suppose at the very last

moment we make a deal with him and with the Democrats to pool our votes on some square man. With

Waring it's anything to beat the Consolidated. He'll jump at the chance if he's sure he is out of the running

himself. Those of the Democrats that Harley can't buy will be glad to beat his man. I don't say it can be done,

They met that night in Yesler's rooms round a cardtable. The hands were dealt for form's sake, since there

were spies everywhere, and it was necessary to ring for cigars and refreshments occasionally to avoid

suspicion. They were all cattlemen, large or small, big outdoors sunburned men, who rode the range in the

Until long past midnight they talked the details over, and when they separated in the small hours it was with a

welldefined plan to save the State from its impending disgrace if the thing could be done.

The first ballots for a United States senator taken by the legislature in joint session failed to disclose the

alignment of some of the doubtful members. The Democratic minority of twentyeight votes were cast for

Springer, the senator whose place would be taken by whoever should win in the contest now on. Warner

received fortyfour, Ridgway twentysix, eight went to Pascom, a former governor whom the cattlemen

were supporting, and the remaining three were scattered. Each day one ballot was taken, and for a week there

was a slight sifting down of the complimentary votes until at the end of it the count stood:

Warner still lacked ten votes of an election, but It was pretty thoroughly understood that several of the

Democratic minority were waiting only long enough for a colorable excuse to switch to him. All kinds of

rumors were in the air as to how many of these there were. The Consolidated leaders boldly claimed that they

had only to give the word to force the election of their candidate on any ballot. Yesler did not believe this

claim could be justified, since Pelton and Harley were already negotiating with him for the delivery of the

He had held off for some time with hints that it would take a lot of money to swing the votes of such men as

Roper and Landor, but he had finally come to an agreement that the eight votes should be given to Warner for

a consideration of $300,000. This was to be paid to Yesler in the presence of the other seven members on the

night before the election, and was to be held in escrow by him and Roper until the pact was fulfilled, the

money to be kept in a safety deposit vault with a key in possession of each of the two.

On the third day of the session, before the voting had begun, Stephen Eaton, who was a State senator from

Mesa, moved that a committee be appointed to investigate the rumors of bribery that were so common. The

motion caught the Consolidated leaders napping, for this was the last man they had expected to propose such

a course, and it went through with little opposition, as a similar motion did in the House at the same time. The

lieutenantgovernor and the speaker of the House were both opposed to Warner, and the joint committee had

on it the names of no Consolidated men. The idea of such a committee had originated with Ridgway, and had

been merely a bluff to show that he at least was willing that the world should know the whole story of the

election. Nor had this committee held even formal meetings before word reached Eaton through Yesler that if

it would appoint a conference in some very private place, evidence would be submitted implicating agents of

It was close to eleven o'clock when Sam Yesler stepped quietly from a side door of his hotel and slipped into

the street. He understood perfectly that in following the course he did, he was taking his life in his hands. The

exposure of the bribery traffic would blast forever the reputations of many men who had hitherto held a high

place in the community, and he knew the temper of some of them well enough to be aware that an explosion

was probable. Spies had been dogging him ever since the legislature convened. Within an hour one of them

would be flying to Pelton with the news that he was at a meeting of the committee, and all the thugs of the

other side would be turned loose on his heels. As he walked briskly through the streets toward the place

appointed, his hand lay on the hilt of a revolver in the outside pocket of his overcoat. He was a man who

would neither seek trouble nor let it overwhelm him. If his life were attempted, he meant to defend it to the

He followed side streets purposely, and his footsteps echoed along the deserted road. He knew he was being

dogged, for once, when he glanced back, he caught sight of a skulking figure edging along close to a wall.

The sight of the spy stirred his blood. Grimly he laughed to himself. They might murder him for what he was

doing, but not in time to save the exposure which would be brought to light on the morrow.

The committee met at a roadhouse near the outskirts of the city, but only long enough to hear Yesler's facts

and to appoint another meeting for three hours later at the offices of Eaton. For the committee had come here

for secrecy, and they knew that it would be only a short time before Pelton's heelers would be down upon

them in force. It was agreed they should divide and slip quietly back to town, wait until everything was quiet

and convene again. Meanwhile Eaton would make arrangements to see that his offices would be sufficiently

Yesler walked back to town and was within a couple of blocks of his hotel when he glimpsed two figures

crouching against the fence of the alley. He stopped in his tracks, watched them intently an instant, and was

startled by a whistle from the rear. He knew at once his retreat, too, was cut off, and without hesitation

vaulted the fence in front of a big gray stone house he was passing. A revolver flashed from the alley, and he

laughed with a strange kind of delight. His thought was to escape round the house, but trellis work barred the

"Trapped, by Jove," he told himself coolly as a bullet struck the trellis close to his head.

He turned back, ran up the steps of the porch and found momentary safety in the darkness of its heavy vines.

But this he knew could not last. Running figures were converging toward him at a focal point. He could hear

oaths and cries. Some one was throwing aimless shots from a revolver at the porch.

He heard a window go up in the second story and a woman's frightened voice ask. "What is it? Who is

"There he isin the doorway," a voice cried out of the night, and it was followed by a spatter of bullets

He fired at a man leaping the fence. The fellow tumbled back with a kind of scream.

He could hear steps coming down the stairway and fingers fumbling at the key of the door. His attackers were

gathering for a rush, and he wondered whether the rescue was to be too late. They came together, the opening

There was a raucous curse, a shot, and Yesler had slammed the door shut. He was alone in the darkness with

"We must get out of here. They're firing through the door," he said, and "Yes" came faintly back to him from

"Do you know where the switch is?" he asked, wondering whether she was going to be such an idiot as to

His answer came in a flood of light, and showed him a young woman crouched on the hallrack a dozen feet

from the switch. She was very white, and there was a little stain of crimson on the white lace of her sleeve.

A voice from the landing above demanded quickly, "Who are you, sir?" and after he had looked up', cried in

"Miss Balfour," he replied. "I'll explain later. I'm afraid the lady has been hit by a bullet."

He was already beside his rescuer. She looked at him with a trace of a tired smile and said:

After which she fainted. He picked up the young woman, carried her to the stairs, and mounted them.

"This way," said Virginia, leading him into a bedroom, the door of which was open.

He observed with surprise that she, too, was dressed in evening clothes, and rightly surmised that they had

She was already clipping with a pair of scissors the sleeve from round the wound.

"It ought not to be," he said after he had examined it. "The bullet has scorched along the fleshy part of the

She did so, then found water and cotton for bandages, and helped him make a temporary dressing. The patient

recovered consciousness under the touch of the cold water, and asked: what was the matter.

"You have been hurt a little, but not badly I think. Don't you remember? You came down and opened the

He smiled. "Don't worry about that. It's all over with. I'm sorry you were hurt in saving me," said Yesler

"Never before tonight," he said, pinning the bandage in place round the plump arm. "There. That's all just

The young woman felt oddly exhilarated. "Not much. I'll forgive you if you'll tell me all about the affair.

His big heart felt very tender toward this girl who had been wounded for him, but he showed it only by a

"You're right persistent, ma'am. You hadn't ought to be bothering your head about any such thing, but if you

He did. While they sat there and waited for the coming of the doctor, he told her the whole story of his

attempt to stop the corruption that was eating like a canker at the life of the State. He was a plain man, not in

the least eloquent, and he told his story without any sense that he had played any unusual part. In fact, he was

ashamed that he had been forced to assume a role which necessitated a kind of treachery to those who thought

Laska Lowe's eyes shone with the delight his tale inspired in her. She lived largely in the land of ideals, and

this fight against wrong moved her mightily. She could feel for him none of the shame which he felt for

himself at being mixed up in so bad a business. He was playing a man's part, had chosen it at risk of his life.

That was enough. In every fiber of her, she was glad that good fortune had given her the chance to bear a part

of the battle. In her inmost heart she was even glad that to the day of her death she must bear the scar that

Virginia, for once obliterating herself, perceived how greatly taken they were with each other. At bottom,

nearly every woman is a matchmaker. This one was no exception. She liked both this man and this woman,

and her fancy had already begun to follow her hopes. Never before had Laska appeared to show much interest

in any of the opposite sex with whom her friend had seen her. Now she was all enthusiasm, had forgotten

"She loved me for the danger I had pass'd, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I

Virginia quoted softly to herself, her eyes on the young woman so finely unconscious of the emotion that

Not until the clock in the hall below struck two did Yesler remember his appointment in the Ridgway

Building. The doctor had come and was about to go. He suggested that if Yesler felt it would be safe for him

"And leave us alone." Laska could have bitten her tongue after the words were out.

Virginia explained. "The Leighs are out of the city tonight, and it happens that even the servants are gone. I

asked Miss Lowe to stay with me all night, but, of course, she feels feverish and nervous after this

excitement. Couldn't you send a man to watch the rest of the night out in the house?"

"Why don't You stay, Mr. Yesler?" the doctor suggested. "You could sleep here, no doubt."

"You might have your meeting here. It is neutral ground. I can phone to Mr. Ridgway," proposed Virginia in

"It implies that we are afraid to have you. Laska would worry both on your account and our own. I think you

"Oh, if that's the way it strikes you," he agreed. "Fact is, I don't quite like to leave you anyhow. We'll take

"I'm sure you won'tand before you go, you'll let us know what you have decided to do."

"We shall not be through before morning. You'll be asleep by then," he made answer.

"My dear young lady, you are to take the sleepingpowders and get a good rest," the doctor demurred. "All

Virginia nodded in a businesslike way. "Yes, you're to go to sleep, Laska, and when you waken I'll tell you

"That would be better," smiled Yesler, and Virginia thought it significant that her friend made no further

Gray streaks began to show in the sky before Yesler tapped on the door of Virginia's room. She had discarded

the rather elaborate evening gown he had last seen her in, and was wearing some soft fabric which hung from

the shoulders in straight lines, and defined the figure while lending the effect of a loose and flowing drapery.

"She has dropped into a good sleep," the girl whispered. "I am sure we don't need to worry about her at all."

"Nevertheless, it's a luxury I'm going to permit myself for a day or two," he smiled. "I don't have my life

He got back at her promptly. "There's somebody downstairs worrying about you. He wants to know if there

is anything he can do for you, and suggests inviting himself for breakfast in order to make sure."

She considered a moment. "Yes, tell him to stay. Molly will be back in time to make breakfast, and I want to

"No, we didn't," he admitted frankly. "We couldn't afford to have it generally understood that this was merely

a partisan fight on the Consolidated, and that we were pulling Waring's chestnuts out of the fire for him."

He did not add, though he might have, that Ridgway was tarred with the same brush as the enemy in this

"That's a secret. I can't tell even you that. But we have agreed on a man. Waring is to withdraw and throw his

influence for him. The Democratic minority will swing in line for him, and we'll do the rest. That's the plan. It

"I don't see who it can be that you all unite on. Of course, it isn't Mr. Pelton?"

"You've used up all the guesses allowed you. If you want to know, why don't you attend the joint session

"It was thoughtful, since you only saved his life," admitted the ironical Miss Balfour.

Virginia crossed the room to the bed and kissed her friend with some subtle significance too elusive for

The change of the relationship between Ridgway and his betrothed, brought about by the advent of a third

person into his life, showed itself in the manner of their greeting. She had always been chary of lovers'

demonstrations, but until his return from Alpine he had been wont to exact his privilege in spite of her

"You've had a strenuous night of it," he said, after a glance at the rather wan face she offered the new day.

Man of iron that he was, he looked fresh as morning dew. With his usual lack of selfconsciousness, he had

appropriated Leigh's private bath, and was glowing from contact with icecold water and a crash towel.

"She has no fever at all. It was only a scratch. She will be down to breakfast in a minute."

"Good. She must be a thoroughbred to come running down into the bullets for a stranger she has never seen."

"I'm glad she saved Sam from being made a colander. I can't help liking him, though he doesn't approve of

"He is friendly, too." Ridgway laughed as he recalled their battle over who should be the nominee. "But his

conscience rules him. It's a free and liberal conscience, generally speakingnothing Puritan about it, but a

distinctive product of the West. Yet, he would not have me for senator at any price."

"Didn't think I was fit to represent the people; said if I went in, it would be to use the office for my personal

"More or less. If I were elected, I would build up my machine, of course, but I would see the people got a

"I would be a live wire, anyhow. Sam had other objections to me. He thought I had been using too much

"Yes. I had to if I were going to stand any chance. It wasn't from choice. I didn't really want to be senator. I

can't afford to give the time to it, but I couldn't afford to let Harley name the man either. I was between the

"But I thoughtwhy, surely he" The surprise of his cool announcement took her breath away.

"No, he isn't the man our combination decided on, but the trouble is that our combination is going to fall

through. Sam's an optimist, but you'll see I'm right. There are too many conflicting elements of us in one boat.

We can't lose three votes and win, and it's a safe bet we lose them. The Consolidated must know by this time

what we have been about all night. They're busy now sapping at our weak links. Our only chance is to win on

"0h, I hope you are not right." A young woman was standing in the doorway, her arm in a sling. She had

come in time to hear his prophesy, and in the disappointment of it had forgotten that he was a stranger.

Virginia remedied this, and they went in to breakfast. Laska was full of interest, and poured out eager

questions at Ridgway. It was not for several minutes that Virginia recollected to ask again who was the man

Her betrothed found some inner source of pleasure that brought out a sardonic smile. "He's a slap in the face

"Yes. He'll do the State credit, or rather he would if he were going to be elected."

He was leaning forward to tell, when the sharp buzz of the electric doorbell, continued and sustained,

From the diningroom they could hear the murmur of quick voices, and soon Ridgway returned. He was a

transformed man. His eyes were hard as diamonds, and there was the bulldog look of the fighter about his

"Trouble in the mines. An hour ago Harley's men rushed the Taurus and the New York, and drove my men

out. One of my shiftforemen and two of his drillers were killed by an explosion set off by Mike Donleavy, a

"I suppose not. But they took the chance. It's murder just the sameby Jove, it's a club with which to beat

He stopped, his brain busy solving the problem as to how he might best turn this development to his own

advantage. Part of his equipment was his ability to decide swiftly and surely issues as they came to him. Now

Give me BraytonHello, Brayton. Get out a special edition at once charging Harley with murder. Run the

word as a red headline clear across the page. Show that Vance Edwards and the other boys were killed while

on duty by an attack ordered by Harley. Point out that this is the logical result of his course. Don't mince

words. Give it him right from the shoulder. Rush it, and be sure a copy of the paper is on the desk of every

legislator before the session opens this morning. Have a reliable man there to see that every man gets one.

"Hello! This you, Steve? Send for Trelawney and Straus right away. Get them to call a mass meeting of the

unions for ten o'clock at the courthouse square. Have dodgers printed and distributed announcing it. Shut

down all our mines so that the men can come. I want Straus and Trelawney and two or three of the other

prominent labor leaders to denounce Harley and lay the responsibility for this thing right at his door. I'll be up

He turned briskly round to the young women, his eyes shining with a hard bright light. "I'm sorry, but I have

got to cut out breakfast this morning. Business is piling up on me too fast. If you'll excuse me, I'll go now."

"I haven't time to tell you now. Just watch my smoke," he laughed without mirth.

No sooner did the news of the tragedy reach Simon Harley than he knew the mistake of his subordinates

would be a costly one. The foreman, Donleavy, who had directed the attack on the Taurus, had to be brought

from the shafthouse under the protection of a score of Pinkerton detectives to safeguard him from the swift

vengeance of the miners, who needed but a word to fling themselves against the cordon of police. Harley

himself kept his apartments, the hotel being heavily patrolled by guards on the lookout for suspicious

characters. The current of public opinion, never in his favor, now ran swiftly against him, and threats were

The members of the unions came to the massmeeting reading the story of the tragedy as the Sun colored the

affair. They stayed sullenly to listen to redhot speeches against the leader of the trust, and gradually the

wrath which was simmering in them began to boil. Ridgway, always with a keen sense of the psychological

moment, descended the courthouse steps just as this fury was at its height. There were instant cries for a

speech from him so persistent that he yielded, though apparently with reluctance. His fine presence and

strong deep voice soon gave him the ears of all that dense throng. He was far out of the ordinary as a public

speaker, and within a few minutes he had his audience with him. He deprecated any violence; spoke strongly

for letting the law take its course; and dropped a suggestion that they send a committee to the Statehouse to

Like wildfire this hint spread. Here was something tangible they could do that was still within the law.

Harley had set his mind on electing Warner. They would go up there in a body and defeat his plans. Marshals

and leaders of companies were appointed. They fell into ranks by fours, nearly ten thousand of them all told.

The big clock in the courthouse was striking twelve when they began their march to the Statehouse.

At the very moment that the tramp of twenty thousand feet turned toward the Statehouse, the report of the

bribery investigating committee was being read to the legislature met in joint session. The committee

reported that it had examined seven witnesses, Yesler, Roper, Landor, James, Reedy, Kellor, and Ward, and

that each of then had testified that former Congressman Pelton or others had approached him on behalf of

Warner; that an agreement had been made by which the eight votes being cast for Bascom would be give to

Warner in consideration of $300,000 in cash, to be held in escrow by Yesler, and that the committee now had

the said package, supposed to contain the bills for that amount, in its possession, and was prepared to turn it

Except for the clerk's voice, as he read the report, a dead silence lay tensely over the crowded hall. Men dared

not look at their neighbors, scarce dared breathe, for the terror that hung heavy on their hearts. Scores were

there who expected their guilt to be blazoned forth for all the world to read. They waited whitely as the

monotonous voice of the clerk went from paragraph to paragraph, and when at last he sat down, having

named only the bribers and not the receivers of bribes, a long deep sigh of relief swept the house. Fear still

racked them, but for the moment they were safe. Furtively their glances began to go from one to another of

One could have heard the rustle of a leaf as the chairman of the committee stepped forward and laid on the

desk of the presiding officer the incriminating parcel. It seemed an age while the chief clerk opened it,

counted the bills, and announced that one hundred thousand dollars was the sum contained within.

Stephen Eaton then rose in his seat and presented quietly his resolution, that since the evidence submitted was

sufficient to convict of bribery, the judge of the district court of the County of Mesa be requested to call a

special session of the grand jury to investigate the report. It was not until Sam Yesler rose to speak upon that

He stood there in the careless garb of the cattleman, a strong cleancut figure as one would see in a day's

ride, facing with unflinching steelblue eyes the tempest of human passion he had evoked. The babel of

voices rose and fell and rose again before he could find a chance to make himself heard. In the gallery two

quietly dressed young, women, one of them with her arm in a sling, leaned forward breathlessly and waited

Laska's eyes glowed with deep fire. She was living her hour of hours, and the man who stood with such quiet

"You call me Judas, and I ask you what Christ I have betrayed. You call me traitor, but traitor to what? Like

you, I am under oath to receive no compensation for my services here other than that allowed by law. To that

"For many weeks we have been living in a carnival of bribery, in a debauched hysteria of moneymadness.

The souls of men have been sifted as by fire. We have all been part and parcel of a manhunt, an eager,

furious, persistent hunt that has relaxed neither night nor day. The lure of gold has been before us every

waking hour, and has pursued us into our dreams. The temptation has been everpresent. To some it has been

irresistible, to some maddening, to others, thank God! it has but proved their strength. Our hopes, our fears,

our loves, our hates: these seducers of honor have pandered to them all. Our debts and our business, our

families and our friendships, have all been used to hound us. Today I put the stigma for this shame where it

belongsupon Simon Harley, head of the Consolidated and a score of other trusts, and upon Waring

Ridgway, head of the Mesa Oreproducing Company. These are the debauchers of our commonwealth's fair

name, and you, alas! the traffickers who hope to live upon its virtue. I call upon you today to pass this

resolution and to elect a man to the United States senate who shall owe no allegiance to any power except the

people, or to receive forever the brand of public condemnation. Are you free men? Or do you wear the collar

of the Consolidated, the yoke of Waring Ridgway? The vote which you will cast today is an answer that

shall go flying to the farthest corner of your world, an answer you can never hope to change so long as you

He sat down in a dead silence. Again men drew counsel from their fears. The resolution passed unanimously,

It was in this moment, while the hearts of the guilty were like water, that there came from the lawn outside

the roar of a multitude of voices. Swiftly the word passed that ten thousand miner had come to see that

Warner was not elected. That they were in a dangerous frame of mind, all knew. It was a passionate

Under these circumstances the joint assembly proceeded to ballot for a senator. The first name called was that

"Before voting, I want to resign my plate a few moments to Mr. Landor, of Kit Carson County," he said.

Landor was recognized, a big broadshouldered plainsman with a leathery face as honest as the sun. He was

"I'm going to make a speech," he announced with the broad smile that showed a flash of white teeth. "I

reckon it'll be the first I ever made here, and I promise it will be the last, boys. But I won't keep you long,

either. You all know how things have been going; how men have been moving in and out and buying men

here like as if they were cattle on the hoof. You've seen it, and I've seen it. But we didn't have the nerve to say

it should stop. One man did. He's the biggest man in this big State today, and it ain't been five minutes since

"It don't do him any harm for you to hollar at him, boysnot a mite. I want to say to you that he's a man. He

saw our old friends falling by the wayside and some of you poor weaklings selling yourselves for dollars.

Because he is an honest, game man, he set out to straighten things up. I want to tell you that my hat's off to

"But that ain't what I rose for. I'm going to name for the United States senate a clean man, one who doesn't

wear either the Harley or the Ridgway brand. He's as straight as a string, not a crooked hair in his head, and

every manjack of you knows it. I'm going to name a man"he stopped an instant to smile genially around

upon the circle of uplifted faces"who isn't any friend of either one faction or another, a man who has just

had independence enough to quit a big job because it wasn't on the square. That man's name is Lyndon

Hobart. If you want to do yourselves proud, gentlemen, you'll certainly elect him."

If it was a sensation he had wanted to create, he had it. The Warner forces were taken with dumb surprise.

But many of them were already swiftly thinking it would be the best way out of a bad business. He would be

conservative, as fair to the Consolidated as to the enemy. More, just now his election would appeal to the

angry mob howling outside the building, for they could ask nothing more than the election of the man who

had resigned rather than order the attack on the Taurus, which had resulted in the death of some of their

Hoyle, of the Democrats, seconded the nomination, as also did Eaton, in a speech wherein he defended the

Within a few minutes of the time that Eaton sat down, the roll had been called and Hobart elected by a vote of

The two young women, sitting together in the front row of the gallery, were glowing with triumphant

happiness. Virginia was still clapping her hands when a voice behind her suggested that the circumstances did

not warrant her being so happy over the result. She turned, to see Waring Ridgway smiling down at her.

"Sam was all right, though he might have eased up a bit when he pitched into me."

"He had to do that to be fair. Everybody knows you and he are friends. I think it was fine of him not to let

"Oh, I knew it would please you," her betrothed laughed. "What do you say to going out to lunch with me?

The young women consulted eyes and agreed very readily. Both of them enjoyed being so near to the heart of

"If Mr. Yesler will lunch with the debaucher of the commonwealth, we shall be very happy to join the party,"

Ridgway led them down to the floor of the House. Through the dense throng they made their way slowly

The explosion of a revolver followed sharply his words. Ridgway dived through the press, tossing men to

right and left of him as a steamyacht does the waves. Through the open lane he left in his wake, the young

women caught the meaning of the turmoil: the crumpled figure was Yesler swaying into the arms of his

friend, Roper, the furious drinkflushed face of Pelton and the menace of the weapon poised for a second

shot, the swift impact of Waring's body, and the blow which sent the next bullet crashing into the chandelier

overhead. All this they glimpsed momentarily before the press closed in on the tragic scene and cut off their

While Harley had been in no way responsible for Pelton's murderous attack upon Yesler, public opinion held

him to account. The Pinkertons who had, up till this time, been employed at the mines, were now moved to

the hotel to be ready for an emergency. A special train was held in readiness to take the New Yorker out of

the State in the event that the stockman should die. Meanwhile, the harassing attacks of Ridgway continued.

Through another judge than Purcell, the absurd injunction against working the Diamond King, the Mary K,

and the Marcus Daly had been dissolved, but even this advantage had been neutralized by the necessity of

giving back to the enemy the Taurus and the New York, of which he had just possessed himself. All his life

he had kept a wheathereye upon the impulsive and fickle public. There were times when its feeling could be

abused with impunity, and other times when this must be respected. Reluctantly, Harley gave the word for the

withdrawal of his men from the territory gained. Ridgway pushed his advantage home and secured an

injunction, not only against the working, but against the inspection of the Copper King and the Jim Hill. The

result of the Consolidated move had been in effect to turn over, temporarily, its two rich mines to be looted

by the pirate, and to make him very much stronger than before with his allies, the unions. By his own

imprudence, Harley had made a bad situation worse, and delivered himself, with his hands tied, into the

In the days of turmoil that followed, Waring Ridgway's telling blows scored once and again. The morning

after the explosion, he started a relief fund in his paper, the Sun, for the families of the dead miners,

contributing two thousand dollars himself. He also insisted that the Consolidated pay damages to the

bereaved families to the extent of twenty thousand dollars for each man killed. The town rang with his

praises. Mesa had always been proud of his success; had liked the democratic spirit of him that led him to

mix on apparently equal terms with his working men, and had backed him in his opposition to the trust

because his plucky and unscrupulous fight had been, in a measure, its fight. But now it idolized him. He was

the buffer between it and the trust, fighting the battles of labor against the great octopus of Broadway, and

beating it to a standstill. He was the Moses destined to lead the working man out of the Egypt of his

discontent. Had he not maintained the standard of wages and forced the Consolidated to do the same? Had he

not declared an eighthour day, and was not the trust almost ready to do this also, forced by the impetus his

example had given the unions? So Ridgway's agents whispered, and the union leaders, whom he had bought,

took up the burden of their tale and preached it both in private talk and in their speeches.

In an attempt to stem the rising tide of denunciation that was spreading from Mesa to the country at large,

Harley announced an eight hour day and an immense banquet to all the Consolidated employees in

celebration of the occasion. Ten thousand men sat down to the long tables, but when one of the speakers

injudiciously mentioned the name of Ridgway, there was steady cheering for ten minutes. It was quite plain

that the miners gave him the credit for having forced the Consolidated to the eighthour day.

The verdict of the coroner's jury was that Vance Edwards and the other deceased miners had come to their

death at the hands of the foreman, Michael Donleavy, at the instigation of Simon Harley. True bills were at

once drawn up by the prosecuting attorney of Mesa County, an official elected by Ridgway, charging Harley

and Donleavy with conspiracy, resulting in the murder of Vance Edwards. The billionaire furnished bail for

himself and foreman, treating the indictments merely as part of the attacks of the enemy.

The tragedy in the Taurus brought to the surface a bitterness that had hitherto not been apparent in the contest

between the rival copper interests. The lines of division became more sharply drawn, and every business man

in Mesa was forced to declare himself on one side or the other. Harley scattered detectives broadcast and

imported five hundred Pinkertons to meet any emergency that might arise. The spies of the Consolidated

were everywhere, gathering evidence against the Mesa Oreproducing Company, its conduct of the senatorial

campaign, its judges, and its supporters Criminal indictments flew back and forth thick as snowflakes in a

It began to be noticed that an occasional foreman, superintendent, or mining engineer was slipping from the

employ of Ridgway to that of the trust, carrying secrets and evidence that would be invaluable later in the

courts. Everywhere the money of the Consolidated, scattered lavishly where it would do the most good,

attempted to sap the loyalty of the followers of the other candidates. Even Eaton was approached with the

But Ridgway's potent personality had built up an esprit de corps not easily to be broken. The adventurers

gathered to his side were, for the most part, bound to him by ties personal in their nature. They were financial

fillibusters, pledged to stand or fall together, with an interest in their predatory leader's success that was not

entirely measurable in dollars and cents. Nor was that leader the man to allow the organization he had builded

with such care to become disintegrated while he slept. His alert eye and cheery smile were everywhere,

instilling confidence in such as faltered, and dread in those contemplating defection.

He harassed his rival with an audacity that was almost devilish in its unexpected ingenuity. For the first time

in his life Simon Harley, the town back on the defensive by a combination of circumstances engineered by a

master brain, knew what it was to be checkmated. He had hot the least doubt of ultimate victory, but the

tentative success of the brazen young adventurer, were gall and wormwood to his soul. He had made money

his god, had always believed it would buy anything worth while except life, but this Western buccaneer had

taught him it could not purchase the love of a woman nor the immediate defeat of a man so well armed as

Waring Ridgway. In truth, though Harley stuck at nothing, his success in accomplishing the destruction of

this thorn in his side was no more appreciable than had been that of Hobart. The Westerner held his own and

In the flush of success, Ridgway, through his lieutenant, Eaton, came to Judge Purcell asking that a receiver

be appointed for the Consolidated Supply Company, a subsidiary branch of the trust, on the ground that its

affairs were not being properly administered. The Supply Company had paid dividends ranging from fifteen

to twentyfive per cent for many years, but Ridgway exercised his right as a stockholder to ask for a

receivership. In point of fact, he owned, in the name of Eaton, only onetenth of one per cent of the stock, but

it was enough to serve. For Purcell was a bigoted old Missourian, as courageous and obstinate as perfect

health and ignorance could make him. He was quite innocent of any legal knowledge, his own rule of law

being to hit a Consolidated head whenever he saw one. Lawyers might argue themselves black in the face

Purcell granted the application, as well as a restraining order against the payment of dividends until further

notice, and appointed Eaton receiver over the protests of the Consolidated lawyers.

Ridgway and Eaton left the courtroom together, jubilant over their success. They dined at a restaurant, and

spent the evening at the oreproducing company's offices, discussing ways and means. When they had

finished, his chief followed Eaton to the doors, an arm thrown affectionately round his shoulder.

"Steve, we're going to make a big killing. I was never so sure of anything in my life as that we shall beat

"It's hard pounding does it, my boy. We'll drive him out of the Montana copperfields yet. We'll show him

there is one little corner of the U. S. where Simon Harley's orders don't go as the last word."

"And I have youth and mining experience and the inside track, as well as stancher friends than he ever

dreamed of," laughed Ridgway, clapping the other on the back. "Well, good night, Steve. Pleasant dreams,

The boyish secretary shook hands warmly. "You're a MAN, chief. If anybody can pull us through it will be

Triumphant confidence rang in the other's answering laugh. "You bet I can, Steve,"

Eaton, standing on the street curb at the corner of the Ridgway Building, lit a cigar while he hesitated

between his rooms and the club. He decided for the latter, and was just turning up the hill, when a hand

covered his mouth and an arm was flung around his neck in a stranglehold. He felt himself lifted like a child,

and presently discovered that he was being whirled along the street in a closed carriage.

"You needn't be alarmed, Mr. Eaton. We're not going to injure you in the least," a low voice explained in his

Eaton nodded a promise, and, when he could find his voice, demanded: "Where are you taking me?"

The carriage turned into an alley and stopped. Eaton was led to a ladder that hung suspended from the

fireescape, and was bidden to mount. He did so, following his guide to the second story, and being in turn

followed by the other man. He was taken along a corridor and into the first of a suite of rooms opening into it.

He knew he was in the Mesa House, and suspected at once that he was in the apartments of Simon Harley.

His suspicion ripened to conviction when his captors led him through two more rooms, into one fitted as an

office. The billionaire sat at a desk, busy over some legal papers he was reading, but he rose at once and came

forward with hand extended to meet Eaton. The young man took his hand mechanically.

"Glad to have the pleasure of talking with, you, Mr. Eaton. You must accept my apologies for my methods of

securing a meeting. They are rather primitive, but since you declined to call and see me, I can hold only you

to blame." An acid smile touched his lips for a moment, though his eyes were expressionless as a wall. "Mr.

Eaton, I have brought you here in this way to have a confidential talk with you, in order that it might not in

any way reflect upon you in case we do not come to an arrangement satisfactory to both of us. Your friends

cannot justly blame you for this conference, since you could not avoid it. Mr. Eaton, take a chair."

The wills of the two men flashed into each other's eyes like rapiers. The weaker man knew that was before

him and braced himself to meet it. He would not sit down. He would not discuss anything. So he told himself

once and again to hold himself steady against the impulse to give way to those imperious eyes behind which

The cold jade eyes were not to be denied. Eaton's gaze fell sullenly, and he slid into a chair.

"I'll discuss no business except in the presence of Mr. Ridgway," he said doggedly, falling back to his second

The young man lifted his head reluctantly and waited. If he had been willing to confess it to himself, he

feared greatly this ruthless spoiler who had built up the greatest fortune in the world from thousands of

wrecked lives. He felt himself choking, just as if those skeleton fingers had been at his throat. but he

The fathomless, dominant gaze caught and held his eyes. "Mr. Eaton, I came here to crush Ridgway. I am

going to stay here till I do. I'm going to wipe him from the map of Montana ruin him so utterly that he can

never recover. It has been my painful duty to do this with a hundred men as strong and as confident as he is.

After undertaking such an enterprise, I have never faltered and never relented. The men I have ruined were

ruined beyond hope of recovery. None of them have ever struggled to their feet again. I intend to make

Stephen Eaton could have conceived nothing more merciless than this man's callous pronouncement, than the

calm certainty of his unemphasized words. He started to reply, but Harley took the words out of his mouth.

"Don't make a mistake. Don't tie to the paltry successes he has gained. I have not really begun to fight yet."

The young man had nothing to say. His heart was water. He accepted Harley's words as true, for he had told

himself the same thing a hundred times. Why had Ridgway rejected the overtures of this colossus of finance?

It had been the sheerest folly born of madness to suppose that anybody could stand against him.

"For Ridgway, the die is cast," the iron voice went on. "He is doomed beyond hope. But there is still a chance

for you. What do you consider your interest in the Mesa Oreproducing Company worth, Mr. Eaton?"

The sudden question caught Eaton with the force of a surprise. "About three hundred thousand dollars," he

heard himself say; and it seemed to him that his voice was speaking the words without his volition.

"I'm going to buy you out for twice that sum. Furthermore, I'm going to take care of your futuregoing to

The waverer's will was in flux, but the loyalty in him still protested. "I can't desert my chief, Mr. Harley."

"Do you call it desertion to leave a raging madman in a sinking boat after you have urged him to seek the

"And I will make you ten times what you are. With Ridgway you have no chance to be anything but a

subordinate. He is the Mesa Oreproducing Company, and you are merely a cipher. I offer your individuality

a chance. I believe in you, and know you to be a strong man." No ironic smile touched Harley's face at this

statement. "You need a chance, and I offer it to you. For your own sake take it."

Every grievance Eaton had ever felt against his chief came trooping to his mind. He was domineering. He did

ride roughshod over his allies' opinions and follow the course he had himself mapped out. All the glory of

the victory he absorbed as his due. In the popular opinion, Eaton was as a farthingcandle to a great electric

"He trusts me," the tempted man urged weakly. He was slipping, and he knew it, even while he assured

"He would sell you out tomorrow if it paid him. And what is he but a robber? Every dollar of his holdings is

stolen from me. I ask only restitution of youand I propose to buy at twice, nay at three times, the value of

"You shall do it." Harley dominated him as bullying schoolmaster does a cringing boy under the lash.

"I can't do it," the young man repeated, all his weak will flung into the denial.

"It's merely a business proposition, young man. The stock you have to sell is valuable today. Reject my

offer, and a month from now it will be quoted on the market at half its present figure, and go begging at that.

It will be absolutely worthless before I finish. You are not selling out Ridgway. He is a ruined man, anyway.

But youI am going to save you in spite of yourself. I am going to shake you from that robber's clutches."

Eaton got to his feet, pallid and limp as a rag. "Don't tempt me," he cried hoarsely. "I tell you I can't do it,

Harley's cold eye did not release him for an instant. "One million dollars and an assured future, orabsolute,

"No fear of that. I'll put you where he can't reach you. Just sign your name to this paper, Mr. Eaton."

"Sign here. Or, wait one moment, till I get witnesses." Harley touched a bell, and his secretary appeared in

Harley held out the pen toward Eaton, looking steadily at him. In a strong man the human eye is a sword

among weapons. Eaton quailed. The fingers of the unhappy wretch went out mechanically for the pen. He

was sweating terror and remorse, but the essential weakness of the man could not stand out unbacked against

the masterful force of this man's imperious will. He wrote his name in the places directed, and flung down the

"You may leave tomorrow night, Mr. Eaton. You'll only have to appear in court once personally. We'll

arrange it quietly for tomorrow afternoon. Ridgway won't know until it is done and you are gone."

It chanced that Ridgway, through the swinging door of a department store, caught a glimpse of Miss Balfour

as he was striding along the street. He bethought him that it was the hour of luncheon, and that she was no

end better company than the revamped noon edition of the morning paper. Wherefore he wheeled into the

"I know the bulliest little French restaurant tucked away in a side street just three blocks from here. The

happiness disseminated in this world by that chef's salads will some day carry him past St. Peter with no

"You believe in salvation by works?" she parried, while she considered his invitation.

"Am I to understand that I am being invited to a theological discussion of a heavenly salad concocted by

"Then I accept. For a week my conscience has condemned me for excess of frivolity. You offer me a chance

to expiate without discomfort. That is my idea of heaven. I have always believed it a place where one

pastures in rich meadows of pleasure, with penalties and consciences all excluded from its domains."

"You should start a church," he laughed. "It would have a great followingespecially if you could operate

She found his restaurant all he had claimed, and more. The little corner of old Paris set her eyes shining. The

"But I don't see how they make it pay. How did he happen to come here? Are there enough people that

He smiled at her enthusiasm. "Hardly. The place has a scarce dozen of regular patrons. Hobart comes here a

good deal. So does Eaton. But it doesn't pay financially. You see, I know because I happen to own it. I used

to eat at Alphonse's restaurant in Paris. So I sent for him. It doesn't follow that one has to be less a slave to the

"Name anything you like. I'll warrant Alphonse can make good if it is not outside of his national cuisine," he

She did not try his capacity to the limit, but the oysters, the salad, the chicken soup were delicious, with the

They made a delightfully gay and intimate hour of it, and were still lingering over their demitasse when

"Isn't it splendid that he's doing so well?" cried the girl with enthusiasm. "The doctor says that if the bullet

had gone a fraction of an inch lower, he would have died. Most men would have died anyhow, they say. It

"That's what pulled him through," he nodded. "It would have done his heart good to see how many friends he

had. His recovery was a continuous performance ovation. It would have been a poorer world for a lot of

He glanced shrewdly at her. "I've learned to look for a particular application when you wear that particularly

Her laugh admitted his hit. "Well, I was thinking of Laska. I begin to think HER fair prince has come."

"Yes. She hasn't found it out herself yet. She only knows she is tremendously interested."

"He's a prince all right, though he isn't quite a fairy. The woman that gets him will be lucky.

"I dare say," he agreed carelessly. "But, then, good women are not so rare as good men. There. are still

enough of them left to save the world. But when it comes to men like Samwell, it would take a Diogenes

"He had been drinking hard for a week. That will explain anything when you add it to his, temperament. I

"I suppose that is why you saved his life when the miners took him and were going to lynch him?"

"I would not have lifted a hand for him. That's the bald truth. But I couldn't let the boys spoil the moral effect

of their victory by so gross a mistake. It would have been playing right into Harley's hands."

"Can a man get over being drunk in five minutes? I never saw anybody more sober than Mr. Pelton when the

"A great shock will sober a man. Pelton is an errant coward, and he had pretty good reason to think he had

"They would not have listened to another man in the world except you," she told him proudly.

"It was really Sam they listened towhen he sent out the message asking them to let the law have its way."

"No, I think it was the way you handled the message. You're a wizard at a speech, you know."

"You can't get away from business even for an hour, can you?" she rallied. "My heaven ,wouldn't suit you at

"I expect it is Eaton," he explained. "Steve phoned down to the office that he isn't feeling well today. I asked

him to have me called up here. If he isn't better, I'm going to drop round and see him."

His face was set like broken ice refrozen. "Yes, it's Eaton. They saybut it can't be true!"

"The boy has sold me out. He is at the courthouse now, undoing my workthe Judas!"

The angry blood swept imperiously into her cheeks. "Don't waste any more time with me, Waring. Gogo

He flung her a grateful look. "You're true blue, Virginia. Come! I'll leave you at the store as we pass."

The defection of Eaton bit his chief to the quick. The force of the blow itself was heavyhow heavy he

could not tell till he could take stock of the situation. He could see that he would be thrown out of court in the

matter of the Consolidated Supply Company receivership, since Eaton's stock would now be in the hands of

the enemy. But what was of more importance was the fact that Eaton's interest in the Mesa Oreproducing

Company now belonged to Harley, who could work any amount of mischief with it as a lever for litigation.

The effect, too, of the man's desertion upon the morale of the M. O. P. forces must be considered and

counteracted, if possible. He fancied he could see his subordinates looking shiftyeyed at each other and

If it had been anybody but Steve! He would as soon have distrusted his right hand as Steve Eaton. Why, he

had made the man, had picked him out when he was a mere clerk, and tied him to himself by a hundred

favors. Up on the Snake River he had saved Steve's life once when he was drowning. The boy had always

been as close to him as a brother. That Steve should turn traitor was not conceivable. He knew all his intimate

plans, stood second to himself in the company. Oh, it was a numbing blow! Ridgway's sense of personal loss

and outrage almost obliterated for the moment his appreciation of the business loss.

The motion to revoke the receivership of the Supply Company was being argued when Ridgway entered the

courtroom. Within a few minutes the news had spread like wildfire that Eaton was lined up with the

Consolidated, and already the paltry dozen of loafers in the courtroom had swelled into hundreds, all of

Ridgway's broad shoulders flung aside the crowd and opened a way to the vacant chair waiting for him. One

of his lawyers had the floor and was flaying Eaton with a vitriolic tongue, the while men craned forward all

Eaton sat beside Mott, drylipped and pallid, his set eyes staring vacantly into space. Once or twice he flung

a furtive glance about him. His stripped and naked soul was enduring a foretaste of the Judgment Day. The

whip of scorn with which the lawyer lashed him cut into his shrinking sensibilities, and left him a welter of

raw and livid wales. Good God! why had he not known it would be like this? He was paying for his treachery

and usury, and it was being burnt into him that as the years passed he must continue to pay in selfcontempt

The case had come to a hearing before Judge Hughes, who was not one of Ridgway's creatures. That on its

merits it would be decided in favor of the Consolidated was a foregone conclusion. It was after the judge had

rendered the expected decision that the dramatic moment of the day came to gratify the seasoned court

Eaton, trying to slip as quietly as possible from the room, came face to face with his former chief. For an

interminable instant the man he had betrayed, blocking the way squarely, held the trembling wretch in the

blaze of his scorn. Ridgway's contemptuous eyes sifted to the ingrate's soul until it shriveled. Then he stood

Some one in the back of the room broke the tense silence and hissed: "The damned Judas!" Instantly echoes

of "Judas! Judas!" filled the room, and pursued Eaton to his cab. It would be many years before he could

recall without scalding shame that moment when the finger of public scorn was pointed at him in execration.

What Harley had sought in the subornation of Eaton had been as much the moral effect of his defection as the

tangible results themselves. If he could shake the confidence of the city and State in the freebooter's

victorious star, he would have done a good day's work. He wanted the impression to spread that Ridgway's

Nor did he fail of his purpose by more than a hair's breadth. The talk of the street saw the beginning of the

But Waring Ridgway was never more dangerous than in apparent defeat. If he were hit hard by Eaton's

treachery, no sign of it was apparent in the jaunty insouciance of his manner. Those having business with him

expected to find him depressed and worried, but instead met a man the embodiment of vigorous and

confident activity. If the subject were broached, he was ready to laugh with them at Eaton's folly in deserting

It was fortunate for Ridgway that the county elections came on early in the spring and gave him a chance to

show that his power was still intact. He arranged to meet at once the political malcontents of the State who

were banded together against the growing influence of the Consolidated. He had a few days before called

together representative men from all parts of the State to discuss a program of action against the enemy, and

Ridgway gave a dinner for them at the Quartzite, the evening of Eaton's defection.

He was at the critical moment when any obvious irresolution would have been fatal. His allies were ready to

concede his defeat if he would let them. But he radiated such an assured atmosphere of power, such an

unconquerable current of vigor, that they could not escape his own conviction of unassailability. He was at

his genial, indomitable best, the magnetic charm of fellowship putting into eclipse the selfishness of the man.

He had been known to boast of his political exploits, of how he had been the Warwick that had made and

unmade governors and United States senators; but the fraternal "we" tonight replaced his usual first person

The business interests of the Consolidated were supreme all over the State. That corporation owned forests

and mills and railroads and mines. It ran sheep and cattleranches as well as stores and manufactories. Most

of the newspapers in the State were dominated by it. Of a population of two hundred and fifty thousand, it

controlled more than half directly by the simple means of filling dinnerpails. That so powerful a

corporation, greedy for power and wealth, should create a strong but scattered hostility in the course of its

growth, became inevitable. This enmity Ridgway proposed to consolidate into a political organization, with

opposition to the trust as its cohesive principle, that should hold the balance of power in the State.

When he rose to explain his object in calling them together, Ridgway's clear, strong presentment of the

situation, backed by his splendid bulk and powerful personality, always bold and dramatic, shocked dormant

antagonisms to activity as a live current does sluggish inertia. For he had eminently the gift of moving

speech. The issue was a simple one, he pointed out. Reduced to ultimates, the question was whether the State

should control the Consolidated or the Consolildated the State. With simple, telling force he faced the

insidious growth of the big copper company, showing how every independent in the State was fighting for his

business life against its encroachments, and was bound to lose unless the opposition was a united one. Let the

independents obtain and keep control of the State politically and the trust might be curbed; not otherwise. In

He sat down in silence more impressive than any applause. But after the silence came a deluge of cheers, the

thunder of them sweeping up and down the long table like a summer storm across a lake.

Presently the floodgates of talk were unloosed, and the conservatives began to be heard. Opposition was

futile because it was too late, they claimed. A young Irishman, primed for the occasion, jumped to his feet

with an impassioned harangue that pedestaled Ridgway as the Washington of the West. He showed how one

man, in coalition with the laborunions, had succeeded in carrying the State against the big copper company;

how he had elected senators and governors, and legislators and judges. If one man could so cripple the

octopus, what could the best blood of the State, standing together, not accomplish? He flung Patrick Henry

and Robert Emmet and Daniel Webster at their devoted heads, demanding liberty or death with the bridled

But Ridgway was not such a tyro at the game of politics as to depend upon speeches for results. His fine hand

had been working quietly for months to bring the malcontents into one camp, shaping every passion to which

men are heir to serve his purpose. As he looked down the table he could read in the faces before him hatred,

revenge, envy, fear, hope, avarice, recklessness, and even love, as the motives which he must fuse to one

common end. His vanity stood on tiptoe at his superb skill in playing on men's wills. He knew he could mold

When the votes were counted at the end of the bitter campaign that followed, Simon Harley's candidates went

down to disastrous defeat all over the State, though he had spent money with a lavish hand. In Mesa County,

Ridgway had elected every one of his judges and retired to private life those he could not influence.

Harley's grim lips tightened when the news reached him. "Very well," he said to Mott "We'll see if these

patriots can't be reached through their stomachs better than their brains. Order every mill and mine and

smelter of the Consolidated closed tonight. Our employees have voted for this man Ridgway. Let him feed

"But the cost to youwon't it be enormous?" asked Mott, startled at his chief's drastic decision.

Harley bared his fangs with a wolfish smile. "We'll make the public pay. Our storehouses are full of copper.

Prices will jump when the supply is reduced fifty per cent. We'll sell at an advance, and clean up a few

millions out of the shutdown. Meanwhile we'll starve this patriotic State into submission."

It came to pass even as Harley had predicted. With the Consolidated mines closed, copper, jumped

upupup. The trust could sit still and coin money without turning a hand, while its employees suffered in

the long, bitter Northern winter. All the troubles usually pursuant on a long strike began to fall upon the

When a delegation from the miners' union came to discuss the situation with Harley he met them blandly,

with many platitudes of sympathy. He regrettedhe regretted exceedinglythe necessity that had been

forced upon him of closing the mines. He had delayed doing so in the hope that the situation might be

relieved. But it had grown worse, until he had been forced to close. No, he was afraid he could not promise to

reopen this winter, unless something were done to ameliorate conditions in the court. Work would begin at

once, however, if the legislators would pass a bill making it optional with any party to a suit to have the case

transferred to another judge in case he believed the bias of the presiding judge would be prejudicial to an

Ridgway was flung at once upon the defensive. His allies, the working men, demanded of him that his

legislature pass the bill wanted by Harley, in order that work might recommence. He evaded their demands

by proposing to arbitrate his difficulties with the Consolidated, by offering to pay into the union treasury hall

a million dollars to help carry its members through the winter. He argued to the committee that Harley was

bluffing, that within a few weeks the mines and smelters would again be running at their full capacity; but

when the pressure on the legislators he had elected became so great that he feared they would be swept from

It was a great victory for Harley. Nobody recognized how great a one more accurately than Waring Ridgway.

The leader of the octopus had dogged him over the shoulders of the people, had destroyed at a single blow

one of his two principal sources of power. He could no longer rely on the courts to support him, regardless of

Very well. If he could not play with cogged dice, he was gambler enough to take the honest chances of the

game without flinching. No despair rang in his voice. The look in his eye was still warm and confident. Mesa

questioned him with glimpses friendly but critical. They found no fear in his bearing, no hint of doubt in his

Ridgway's answer to the latest move of Simon Harley was to put him on trial for his life to answer the charge

of having plotted and instigated the death of Vance Edwards. Not without reason, the defense had asked for a

change of venue, alleging the impossibility of securing a fair trial at Mesa. The courts had granted the request

On the second day of the trial Aline sat beside her husband, a dainty little figure of fear, shrinking from the

observation focused upon her from all sides. The sight of her forlorn sensitiveness so touched Ridgway's

heart that he telegraphed Virginia Balfour to come and help support her through the ordeal.

Virginia came, and henceforth two women, both of them young and unusually attractive, gave countenance to

the man being tried for his life. Not that he needed their support for himself, but for the effect they might

have on the jury. Harley had shrewdly guessed that the whitefaced child he had married, whose pathetic

beauty was of so haunting a type, and whose big eyes were so quick to reflect emotions, would be a valuable

For its effect upon himself, so far as the trial was concerned, Simon Harley cared not a whit. He needed no

bolstering. The old wrecker carried an iron face to the ordeal. His leathern heart was as foreign to fear as to

pity. The trial was an unpleasant bore to him, but nothing worse. He had, of course, cast an anchor of caution

to windward by taking care to have the jury fixed. For even though his array of lawyers was a formidably

famous one, he was no such child as to trust his case to a Western jury on its merits while the undercurrent of

popular opinion was setting so strongly against him. Nor had he neglected to see that the courtroom was

packed with detectives to safeguard him in the event that the sympathy of the attending miners should at any

The most irritating feature of the trial to the defendant was the presence of the little woman in black, whose

burning eyes never left for long his face. He feigned to be unconscious of her regard, but nobody in the

courtroom was more sure of that look of enduring, passionate hatred than its victim. He had made her a

widow, and her heart cried for revenge. That was the story the eyes told dumbly.

From first to last the case was bitterly contested, and always with the realization among those

presentexcept for that somber figure in black, whose beady eyes gimleted the defendantthat it was

another move in the fight between the rival copper kings. The district attorney had worked up his case very

carefully, not with much hope of securing a conviction, but to mass a total of evidence that would condemn

To this end, the foreman, Donleavy, had been driven by a process of sweating to turn State's evidence against

his master. His testimony made things look black for Harley, but when Hobart took the stand, a palpably

unwilling witness, and supported his evidence, the Ridgway adherents were openly jubilant. The lawyers for

the defense made much of the fact that Hobart had just left the Consolidated service after a disagreement with

the defendant and had been elected to the senate by his enemies, but the impression made by his moderation

and the fine restraint of his manner, combined with his reputation for scrupulous honesty, was not to be

shaken by the subtle innuendos and blunt aspersions of the legal array he faced.

Nor did the young district attorney content himself with Hobart's testimony. He put his successor, Mott, on

the stand, and gave him a bad hour while he tried to wring the admission out of him that Harley had

personally ordered the attack on the miners of the Taurus. But for the almost constant objections of the

opposing counsel, which gave him time to recover himself, the prosecuting attorney would have succeeded.

Ridgway, meeting him by chance after luncheon at the foot of the hotel elevatorfor in a town the size of

Avalanche, Waring had found it necessary to put up at the same hotel as the enemy or take second best, an

alternative not to his fastidious tasterallied him upon the predicament in which he had found himself.

"It's pretty hard to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, without making indiscreet

"I don't say you did, though you didn't look as if you were enjoying yourself. I picked up an impression that

you had your back to the wall; seemed to me the jury rather sized it up that way, Mott."

"Shall we?" the other laughed aloud. "Now, I'm wondering whether we shall know what they really think."

"If you mean that the jury has been tampered with it is your duty to place your evidence before the court, Mr.

"When I hear the verdict I'll tell you what I think about the jury," returned the president of the Oreproducing

At the second floor Waring left it and turned toward the ladies' parlor. It had seemed to him that Aline had

looked very tired and frail at the morning session, and he wanted to see Virginia about arranging to have

them take a long drive into the country that afternoon. He had sent his card up with a penciled note to the

But when he stepped through the double doorway of the ornate room it was to become aware of a prior

occupant. She was reclining on a divan at the end of the large public room. Neither lying nor sitting, but

propped up among a dozen pillows with head and limbs inert and the long lashes drooped on the white

cheeks, Aline looked the pathetic figure of a child fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion after a long strain.

Since he was the man he was, unhampered by any too fine sense of what was fitting, he could no more help

approaching than he could help the passionate pulse of pity that stirred in his heart at sight of her forlorn

Her eyes opened to find his grave compassion looking down at her. She showed no surprise at his presence,

though she had not previously known of it. Nor did she move by even so much as the stir of a limb.

"This is wearing you out," he said, after the long silence in which her gaze was lost helplessly in his. "You

must go homeaway from it all. You must forget it, and if it ever crosses your mind think of it as something

The last word slipped out not of her will, but from an undisciplined heart. It stood for the whole tangled story

of her troubles: the unloved marriage which had bereft her of her heritage of youth and joy, the love that had

found her too late and was so poignant a fount of distress to her, the web of untoward circumstance in which

"How did you ever come to do it?" he asked roughly, out of the bitter impulse of his heart.

She knew that the harshness was not for her, as surely as she knew what he meant by his words.

"I did wrong. I know that now, but I didn't know it then. Though even then I felt troubled about it. But my

guardian said it was best, and I knew so little. Oh, so very, very little. Why was I not taught things, what

Nothing he could say would comfort her. For the inexorable facts forbade consolation. She had made

shipwreck of her life before the frail raft of her destiny had well pushed forth from harbor. He would have

given much to have been able to take the sadness out of her great childeyes, but he knew that not even by the

greatness of his desire could he take up her burden. She must carry it alone or sink under it.

"You must go away from here back to your people. If not now, then as soon as the trial is over. Make him

"I have no friends that can help me." She said it in an even little voice of despair.

"You have many friends. You have made some here. Virginia is one." He would not name himself as only a

"Yes, Virginia is my friend. She is good to me. But she is going to marry you, and then you will both forget

"I shall never forget you." He cried it in a low, tense voice, his clenched hands thrust into the pockets of his

Her wan smile thanked him. It was the most he would let himself say. Though her heart craved more, she

"I came up to see Virginia," he went on, with a change of manner. "I want her to take you driving this

afternoon. Forget about that wretched trial if you can. Nothing of importance will take place today."

He turned at the sound of footsteps, and saw that Miss Balfour had come into the room.

"I want you to take Mrs. Harley into the fresh sunshine and clear air this afternoon. I have been telling her to

forget this trial. It's a farce, anyhow. Nothing will come of it. Take her out to the Homestake and cheer her

But with Aline watching them the spirit of badinage in him was overmatched. He gave it up and asked what

kind of a rig he should send round. Virginia furnished him the necessary specifications, and he turned to go.

As he left the room Simon Harley entered. They met face to face, and after an instant's pause each drew aside

to allow the other to pass. The New Yorker inclined his head silently and moved forward toward his wife.

As the days of the trial passed excitement grew more tense. The lawyers for the prosecution and the defense

made their speeches to a crowded and enthralled courtroom. There was a feverish uncertainty in the air. It

reached a climax when the jury stayed out for eleven hours before coming to a verdict. From the moment it

filed back into the courtroom with solemn faces the dramatic tensity began to foreshadow the tragedy about

to be enacted. The woman Harley had made a widow sat erect and rigid in the seat where she had been

throughout the trial. Her eyes blazed with a hatred that bordered madness. Ridgway had observed that neither

Aline Harley nor Virginia was present, and a note from the latter had just reached him to the effect that Aline

was ill with the strain of the long trial. Afterward Ridgway could never thank his pagan gods enough that she

A folded note was handed to the judge. He read it slowly, with an inscrutable face.

Silence, full and rigid, held the room after the words "Not guilty" had fallen from the lips of the judge. The

The exploding echoes of a pistolshot reverberated. Men sprang wildly to their feet, gazing at each other in

the distrust that fear generates. But one man was beyond being startled by any more earthly sounds. His head

fell forward on the table in front of him, and a thin stream of blood flowed from his lips. It was Simon

Harley, found guilty, sentenced, and executed by the judge and jury sitting in the outraged, insane heart of the

Mrs. Edwards had shot him through the head with a revolver she had carried in her shoppingbag to exact

Aline might have been completely prostrated by the news of her husband's sudden end, coming as it did as

the culmination of a week of strain and horror. That she did not succumb was due, perhaps, to Ridgway's care

for her. When Harley's massive gray head had dropped forward to the table, his enemy's first thought had

He sent his card up, and followed it so immediately that he found her scarcely risen from the divan on which

she had been lying in the receivingroom of her apartments. The sleep was not yet shaken from her lids, nor

was the wrinkled flush smoothed from the soft cheek that had been next the cushion. Even in his trouble for

her he found time to be glad that Virginia was not at the moment with her. It gave him the sense of another

bond between them that this tragic hour. should belong to him and her alonethis hour of destiny when their

lives swung round a corner beyond which lay wonderful vistas of kindly sunbeat and dewy starlight

She checked the rush of glad joy in her heart the sight of him always brought, and came forward slowly. One

She questioned him with wide, startled eyes, words hesitating on her trembling lips and flying unvoiced.

"Childlittle partnerthe orders are to be brave." He came forward and took her hands in his, looking

He told her the brutal fact as gently as he could, while he watched the blood ebb from her face. As she

swayed he caught her in his arms and carried her to the divan. When, presently, her eyes fluttered open, it

was to look into his pitiful ones. He was kneeling beside her, and her head was pillowed on his arm.

She moved her head restlessly, and he took away his arm, rising to draw a chair close to the lounge. She

slipped her two hands under her head, letting them lie palm to palm on the sofapillow. The violet eyes looked

past him into space. Her tangled thoughts were in a chaos of disorder. Even though she had known but a few

months and loved not at all the grim, grayhaired man she had called husband, the sense of wretched

bereavement, the nearness of death, was strong on her. He had been kind to her in his way, and the inevitable

closeness of their relationship, repugnant as it had been to her, made its claims felt. An hour ago he had been

standing here, the strong and virile ruler over thousands. Now he lay stiff and cold, all his power shorn from

him without a second's warning. He had kissed her goodby, solicitous for her welfare, and it had been he

that had been in need of care rather than she. Two big tears hung on her lids and splashed to her cheeks. She

Ridgway let her weep without interruption for a time, knowing that it would be a relief to her surcharged

heart and overwrought nerves. But when her sobs began to abate she became aware of his hand resting on her

shoulder. She sat up, wiping her eyes, and turned to him a face sodden with grief.

"If my goodness were only less futile! Heaven knows what I would give to ward off trouble from you. But I

"But it is a help to know you would if you could. HeI think he wanted to ward off grief from me, but he

could not, either. I was often lonely and sad, even though he was kind to me. And now he has gone. I wish I

"Yes, we all feel that when we have lost some one we love. It is natural to wish we had been better to them

and showed them how much we cared. Let me tell you about my mother. I was thirteen when she died. It was

in summer. She had not been well for a long time. The boys were going fishing that day and she asked me to

stay at home. I had set my heart on going, and I thought it was only a fancy of hers. She did not insist on my

staying, so I went, but felt uncomfortable all day. When I came back in the evening they told me she was

dead. I felt as if some great icy hand were tightening, on my heart. Somehow I couldn't break down and cry it

out. I went around with a white, set face and gave no sign. Even at the funeral it was the same. The neighbors

called me hardhearted and pointed me out to their sons as a terrible warning. And all the time I was torn

"And one night she came to me in a dream. She did not look as she had just before she died, but strong and

beautiful, with the color in her face she used to have. She smiled at me and kissed me and rumpled my hair as

she used to do. I knew, then, it was all right. She understood, and I didn't care whether others did or not. I

"It was so sweet of her to think to come to you. She must have been loving you up in heaven and saw you

were troubled, and came down just to comfort you and tell you it was all right," the girl cried with soft

"That's how I understood it. Of course, I was only a boy, but somehow I knew it was more than a dream. I'm

not a spiritualist. I don't believe such things happen, but I know it happened to me," he finished illogically,

She sighed. "He was always so thoughtful of me, too. I do wish I hadcould have beenmore"

"You must not blame yourself for that. He would be the first to tell you so. He took you for what you could

"It was a great pleasure to him to be good to you, the greatest pleasure he knew."

She looked up as he spoke, and saw shining deep in his eyes the spirit that had taught him to read so well the

impulse of another lover, and, seeing it, she dropped her eyes quickly in order not to see what was there. With

him it had been only an instant's uncontrollable surge of ecstasy. He meant to wait. Every instinct of the

decent thing told him not to take advantage of her weakness, her need of love to rest upon in her trouble, her

transparent care for him and confidence in him so childlike in its entirety. For convention he did not care a

turn of his hand, but he would do nothing that might shock her selfrespect when she came to think of it later.

"Shall I see Mr. Mott for you and send him here? It would be better that he should make the arrangements

"If you please. I shall not see you again before I go, then?" Her lips trembled as she asked the question.

"I shall come down to the hotel again and see you before you go. And now goodby. Be brave, and don't

The door opened, and Virginia came in, flushed with rapid walking. She had heard the news on the street and

Her eyes asked of Ridgway: "Does she know?" and he answered in the affirmative. Straight to Aline she went

and wrapped her in her arms, the latent mothering instinct that is in every woman aroused and dormant.

Yesler, still moving slowly with a walking stick by reason of his green wound, left the streetcar and made

his way up Forest Road to the house which bore the number 792. In the remote past there had been some

spasmodic attempt to cultivate grass and raise some shadetrees along the sidewalks, but this had long since

been given up as abortive. An air of decay hung over the street, the unmistakable suggestion of better days.

This was writ large over the house in front of which Yesler stopped. The gate hung on one hinge, boards were

missing from the walk, and a dilapidated shutter, which had once been green, swayed in the breeze.

A woman of about thirty, dark and pretty but poorly dressed, came to the door in answer to his ring. Two

little children, a boy and a girl, with their mother's shy longlashed Southern eyes of brown, clung to her

"I'm sorry to hear it. Too sick to be seen? If not, I should like very much to see him. I have business with

The young woman looked at him a little defiantly and a little suspiciously. "Are you a reporter?"

"Does he owe you money" He could see the underlying blood dye her dusky cheeks when she asked the

question desperately, as it seemed to him with a kind of brazen shame to which custom had inured her. She

had somehow the air of some gentle little creature of the forests defending her young.

"I haven't mentioned it," he admitted, with the sunny smile that was a letter of recommendation in itself.

From an adjoining room a querulous voice broke into their conversation. "Who is it, Norma?"

"It is I, Mr. Pelton. I came to have a talk with you." Yesler pushed forward into the dingy sittingroom with

the pertinacity of a bookagent. "I heard you were not well, and I came to find out if I can do anything for

The stout man lying on the lounge grew pale before the blood reacted in a purple flush. His very bulk

emphasized the shabbiness of the stained and almost buttonless Prince Albert coat he wore, the dinginess of

"Leave my house, seh. You have ruined this family, and you come to gloat on your handiwork. Take a good

look, and then go, Mr. Yesler. You see my wife in cotton rags doing her own work. Is it enough, seh?"

The slim little woman stepped across the room and took her place beside her husband. Her eyes flashed fire at

the man she held responsible for the fall of her husband. Yesler's generous heart applauded the loyalty which

was proof against both disgrace and poverty. For in the past month both of these had fallen heavily upon her.

Tom Pelton had always lived well, and during the past few years he had speculated in ventures far beyond his

means. Losses had pursued him, and he had looked to the senatorship to recoup himself and to stand off the

creditors pressing hard for payment. Instead he had been exposed, disgraced, and finally disbarred for

attempted bribery. Like a horde of hungry rats his creditors had pounced upon the discredited man and

wrested from him the remnants of his mortgaged property. He had been forced to move into a mere cottage

and was a man without a future. For the only profession at which he had skill enough to make a living was

the one from which he had been cast as unfit to practise it. The ready sympathy of the cattleman had gone out

to the politician who was down and out. He had heard the situation discussed enough to guess pretty close to

the facts, and he could not let himself rest until he had made some effort to help the man whom his exposure

had ruined, or, rather, had hastened to ruin, for that result had been for years approaching.

"Make it right!" The former congressman got up with an oath. "Make it right! Can you give me back my

reputation, my future? Can you take away the shame that has come upon my wife, and that my children will

have to bear in the years to come? Can you give us back our home, our comfort, our peace of mind?"

"No, I can't do this, but I can help you to do it all," the cattleman made answer quietly.

He offered no defense, though he knew perfectly well none was needed. He had no responsibility in the

calamity that had befallen this family. Pelton's wrongdoing had come home to those he loved, and he could

rightly blame nobody but himself. However much he might arraign those who had been the agents of his fall,

"I can't do it so long as you hold me for an enemy, ma'am. I'm ready to cry quits with your husband and try a

new deal. If I injured him he tried to even things up. Well, let's say things are squared and start fresh. I've got

"I'm running about twentyfive thousand sheep up in the hills. I've just bought a ranch with a comfortable

ranchhouse on it for a kind of central point. My winter feeding will all be done from it as a chief place of

distribution. Same with the shearing and shipping. I want a good man to put in charge of my sheep as head

manager, and I would be willing to pay a proper salary. There ain't any reason why this shouldn't work into a

partnership if he makes good. With wool jumping, as it's going to do in the next four years, the right kind of

man can make himself independent for life. My idea is to increase my holdings right along, and let my

manager in as a partner as soon as he shows he is worth it. Now that ranchhouse is a decent place. There's a

pretty good school, ma'am, for the children. The folks round that neighborhood may not have any frills,

"That was my idea, ma'am. It's not what you been used to, o' course, but if you're looking for a change I

She looked at him in a dumb surprise. She, too, in her heart knew that this man was blameless. He had done

his duty, and had nearly lost his life for it at the hands of her husband. Now, he had come to lift them out of

the hideous nightmare into which they had fallen. He had come to offer them peace and quiet and plenty in

exchange for the future of poverty and shame and despair which menaced them. They were to escape into

God's great hills, away from the averted looks and whispering tongues and the temptations to drown his

trouble that so constantly beset the father of her children. Despite his faults she still loved Tom Pelton; he

was a kind and loving husband and father. Out on the range there still waited a future for him. When she

thought of it a lump rose in her throat for very happiness. She, who had been like a rock beside him in his

"Don't you, honeynow, don't you cry." The big man had lost all his pomposity, and was comforting his

sweetheart as simply as a boy. "It's all been my fault. I've been doing wrong for yearstrying to pull myself

out of the mire by my bootstraps. By Gad, you're a man, Sam Yesler, that's what you are. If I don't turn ovah

a new leaf I'd ought to be shot. We'll make a fresh start, sweetheart. Dash me, I'm nothing but a dashed baby."

Yesler, moved a good deal himself, maintained the burden of the conversation cheerfully.

"That's all settled, then. Tell you I'm right glad to get a competent man to put in charge. Things have been

running at loose ends, because I haven't the time to look after them. This takes a big load off my mind. You

better arrange to go up there with me as soon as you have time, Pelton, and look the ground over. You'll want

to make some changes if you mean to take your family up there. Better to spend a few hundreds and have

things the way you want them for Mrs. Pelton than to move in with things not up to the mark. Of course, I'll

put the house in the shape you want it. But we can talk of that after we look it over."

In his embarrassment he looked so much the boy, so much the culprit caught stealing apples and up for

sentence, that Norma Pelton's gratitude took courage. She came across to him and held out both hands, the

"You've given us more than life, Mr. Yesler. You can't ever know what you have done for us. Some things

are worse than death to some people. I don't mean poverty, butother things. We can begin again far away

from this tainted air that has poisoned us. I know it isn't good form to be saying this. One shouldn't have

feelings in public. But I don't care. I think of the childrenand Tom. I didn't expect ever to be happy again,

She broke down again and dabbed at her eyes with her kerchief. Sam, very much embarrassed but not at all

displeased at this display of feeling, patted her dark hair and encouraged her to composure.

"There. It's all right, now, ma'am. Sure you'll be happy. Any mother that's got kids like these"

He caught up the little girl in his arms by way of diverting attention from himself.

"I want you to kiss them both. Come here, Kennie. This is Mr. Yesler, and he is the best man you've ever

"Oh, sho, ma'am!" protested the overwhelmed cattleman, kissing both the children, nevertheless.

Pelton laughed. He felt a trifle hysterical himself. "If she thinks it she'll say it when she feels that way. I'm

She turned toward him, and Yesler, laughing, met the red lips of the new friend he had made.

"Now, you've got just grounds for shooting me," he said gaily, and instantly regretted his infelicitous remark

For both husband and wife fell grave at his words. It was Pelton that answered them.

"I've been taught a lesson, Mr. Yesler. I'm never going to pack a gun again as long as I live, unless I'm

hunting or something of that sort, and I'm never going to drink another drop of liquor. It's all right for some

"Glad to hear it. I never did believe in the hippocket habit. I've lived here twenty years, and I never found it

necessary except on special occasions. When it comes to whisky, I reckon we'd all be better without it."

Yesler made his escape at the earliest opportunity and left them alone together. He lunched at the club,

attended to some correspondence he had, and about 3:30 drifted down the street toward the postoffice. He

had expectations of meeting a young woman who often passed about that time on her way home from school

It was, however, another young woman whose bow he met in front of Mesa's largest department store.

"I ain't much of a one. That's a fact," he admitted. "What is it this timepoker?"

"No, it isn't poker. Worse than that. You've been setting a deplorable example to the young."

"No, to young Christians. I don't know what our good deacons will say about it." She illuminated her severity

with a flashing smile. "Don't you know that the sins of the fathers are to descend upon their children even to

the third and fourth generation? Don't you know that when a man does wrong he must die punished, and his

children and his wife, of course, and that the proper thing to do is to stand back and thank Heaven we haven't

"And after the man had disgraced himself and shot you, after all respectable people had given him an extra

kick to let him know he must stay down and had then turned their backs upon him. I'm not surprised that

"From Norma Pelton. She told me everything, the whole story from beginning to end."

"It's right funny you should be calling on her, and you a respectable young ladyunless you went to deliver

She dropped her raillery. "It was splendid. I meant to ask Mr. Ridgway to do something for them, but this is

so much better. It takes them away from the place of his disgrace and away from temptation. Oh, I don't

"Don't be afraid. I'm not going to." And before she disappeared within the portals of the department store she

gave him one last thrust. "It's not so public up in the library. Perhaps if you happen to be going that way "

She left her communication a fragment, but he thought it worth acting upon. Among the library shelves he

"This ain't any kind of day to be fooling away your time on cookbooks. Come out into the sun and live," he

They walked past the gallowsframes and the slagdumps and the shafthouses into the brown hills beyond

the point where green copper streaks showed and spurred the greed of man. It was a day of spring sunshine,

the good old earth astir with her annual recreation. The roadside was busy with this serious affair of living.

Ants and crawling things moved to and fro about their business. Squirrels raced across the road and stood up

at a safe distance to gaze at these intruders. Birds flashed back and forth, hurried little carpenters busy with

the specifications for their new nests. Eager palpitating life was the keynote of the universe.

"It's spreading almost as fast as if it were a secret," he smiled. "I'm expecting to find it in the paper when we

"Partly. You told me how things were going with them. That seemed to put it up to me to give Pelton a

"I certainly didn't mean it that way. I had no right to ask you to do anything about it."

"Mr. Roper once told me that you always feel responsible when you hear anybody is in trouble," the young

Presently they diverged from the road and sat down on a great flat rock which dropped out from the hillside

like a park seat. For he was still far from strong and needed frequent rests. Their talk was desultory, for they

had reached that stage of friendship at which it is not necessary to bridge silence with idle small talk. Here,

by some whim of fate, the word was spoken. He knew he loved her, but he had not meant to say it yet.

But when her steady gray eyes came back to his after a long stillness, the meeting brought him a strange

"Yes, Sam," she answered directly. That was all. It was settled with a word. There in the sunshine he kissed

her and sealed the compact, and afterward, when the sun was low among the hill spurs, they went back

Ridgway had promised Aline that he would see her soon, and when he found himself in New York he called

at the big house on Fifth Avenue, which had for so long been identified as the home of Simon Harley. It bore

his impress stamped on it. Its austerity suggested the Puritan rather than the classic conception of simplicity.

The immense rooms were as chill as dungeons, and the forlorn little figure in black, lost in the loneliness of

their bleakness, wandered to and fro among her retinue of servants like a butterfly beating its wings against a

The joynote in her voice was irrepressible. She had been alone for weeks with the conventional gloom that

made an obsession of the shadow of death which enveloped the house. All voices and footsteps had been

subdued to harmonize with the grief of the mistress of this mausoleum. Now she heard the sharp tread of this

man unafraid, and saw the alert vitality of his confident bearing. It was like a breath of the hills to a parched

"Yes. I've been looking for you every day. I've checked each one off on my calendar. It's been three weeks

"I thought it was a year," he laughed, and the sound of his uncurbed voice rang strangely in this room given

"Tell me about everything. How is Virginia, and Mrs. Mott, and Mr. Yesler? And is he really engaged to that

"Oh, I'll treat you well. I never was so glad to see a real live somebody in my life. It's been pretty bad here."

She gave a dreary little smile as she glanced around at the funereal air of the place. "Do you know, I don't

think we think of death in the right way? Or, maybe, I'm a heathen and haven't the proper feelings."

She had sat down on one of the stiff divans, and Ridgway found a place beside her.

"I can't help feeling that the living have rights, too," she began dubiously. "If they would let me alone I could

be sorry in my own way, but I don't see why I have to make a parade of grief. It seems toto cheapen one's

He nodded. "Just as if you had to measure your friendship for the dead with a yardstick of Mother Grundy.

"It's so good to hear you say that. And do you think I may begin to be happy again?"

"I think it would be allowable to start with one smile a day, say, and gradually increase the dose," he jested.

She made the experiment without waiting the week, amused at his whimsical way of putting it. Nevertheless,

"That would be a good one. I'm going to use it to fight the Consolidated. Since you are now its chief

"Am I your enemy? Let's be friendly enemies, then. And there's something I want to talk to you about. Before

he died Mr. Harley told me he had made you an offer. I didn't understand the details, but you were to be in

"I want you to take it now and manage everything for me. I don't know Mr. Harley's associates, but I can trust

you. You can arrange it any way you like, but I want to feel that you have the responsibility."

He saw again that vision of powerall the copper interests of the country pooled, with himself at the head of

the combination. He knew it would not be so easy to arrange as she thought, for, though she had inherited

Harley's wealth, she had not taken over his prestige and force. There would be other candidates for

leadership. But if he managed her campaign Aline's great wealth must turn the scale in their favor.

"You must think this over again. You must talk it over with your advisers before we come to a decision," he

"I've told Mr. Jarmyn. He says the idea is utterly impossible. But we'll show him, won't we? It's my money

and my stock, not his. I don't see why he should dictate. He's always 'My dear ladying' me. I won't have it,"

The fighting gleam was in Ridgway's eyes now. "So Mr. Jannyn thinks it is impossible, does he?"

"You're very good to me," she said, so naively that he could not keep back his smile.

"Most people would say I was very good to myself. What you offer me is a thing I might have fought for all

"Then I'm glad if it pleases you. That's enough about business. Now, we'll talk about something important."

He could think of only one thing more important to him than this, but it appeared she meant plans to see as

"I suppose you have any number of other friends here that will want you?" she said.

"They can't have me if this friend wants me," he answered, with that deep glow in his eyes she recognized

from of old; and before she could summon her reserves of defense he asked: "Do you want me, Aline?"

His meaning came to her with a kind of sweet shame. "No, no, nonot yet," she cried.

"Dear," he answered, taking her little hand in his big one, "only this now: that I can't help wanting to be near

you to comfort you, because I love you. For everything else, I am content to wait."

"And I love you," the girlwidow answered, a flush dyeing her cheeks. "But I ought not to tell you yet, ought

There was that in her radiant teardewed eyes that stirred the deepest stores of tenderness in the man. His

"It is right that you should tell me, since it is true, but it is right, too, that we should wait."

"It is sweet to know that you love me. There are so many things I don't understand. You must help me. You

She took it seriously. "But I'm afraid I can't. You know so much better than I do what is right."

"You're so sure of everything. You took it for granted that I loved you. Why were you so sure?"

She whispered it. "Yes, I knew it, but when you did not come I thought, perhaps You see, I'm not strong or

clever. I can't help you as Virginia could." She stopped, the color washing from her face. "I had forgotten.

"Girl o'mine, we have every right in the world. Love is never wrong unless it is a theft or a robbery. There is

nothing between me and Virginia that is not artificial and conventional, no tie that ought not to be broken,

none that should ever of right have existed. Love has the right of way before mere convention a hundredfold."

"But on this I am quite clear. I can be a conscience to myself. However, there is no hurry. Time's a great

He lifted her little pink fingers and kissed them. "Yes, we can do that all the time."

Miss Balfour's glass made her irritably aware of cheeks unduly flushed and eyes unusually bright. Since she

prided herself on being sufficient for the emergencies of life, she cast about in her mind to determine which

of the interviews that lay before her was responsible for her excitement. It was, to be sure, an unusual

experience for a young woman to be told that her fiance would be unable to marry her, owing to a subsequent

engagement, but she looked forward to it with keen anticipation, and would not have missed it for the world.

Since she pushed the thought of the other interview into the background of her mind and refused to

contemplate it at all, she did not see how that could lend any impetus to her pulse.

But though she was pleasantly excited as she swept into the receptionroom, Ridgway was unable to detect

the fact in her cool little nod and frank, careless handshake. Indeed, she looked so entirely mistress of herself,

so much the perfectly gowned exquisite, that he began to dread anew the task he had set himself. It is not a

pleasant thing under the most favorable circumstances to beg off from marrying a young woman one has

engaged oneself to, and Ridgway did not find it easier because the young woman looked every inch a queen,

and was so manifestly far from suspecting the object of his call. "I haven't had a chance to congratulate you

personally yes," she said, after they had drifted to chairs. "I've been immensely proud of you."

She swept him with one of her smilelit side glances. "Though, of course, in a way, I was felicitating myself

She laughed with velvet maliciousness. "Oh, well, I'm dragged into the orbit of your greatness, am I not? As

the wife of the president of the Greater Consolidated Copper Companythe immense combine that takes in

practically all the larger copper properties in the countryI should come in for a share of reflected glory,

Ridgway bit his lip and took a deep breath, but before he had found words she was off again. She had no

"How did you do it? By what magic did you bring it about? Of course, I've read the newspapers' accounts,

seen your features and your history butchered in a dozen Sunday horrors, and thanked Heaven no enterprising

reporter guessed enough to use me as copy. Every paper I have picked up for weeks has been full of you and

the story of how you took Wall Street by the throat. But I suspect they were all guesses, merely superficial

rumors except as to the main facts. What I want to know is the inside storythe lever by means of which

you pried open the door leading to the inner circle of financial magnates. You have often told me how tightly

barred that door is. What was the opensesame you used as a countersign to make the keeper of the gate

He thought he saw his chance. "The countersign was 'Aline Harley,'" he said, and looked her straight in the

face. He wished he could find some way of telling her without making him feel so like a cad.

She clapped her hands. "I thought so. She backed you with that uncounted fortune her husband left her. Is that

That is it exactly. She gave me a free hand, and the immense fortune she inherited from Harley put me in a

position to force recognition from the leaders. After that it was only a question of time till I had convinced

them my plan was good." He threw back his shoulders and tried to take the fence again. "Would you like to

"I suppose because she is interested in us and our little affair. Doesn't all the world love a lover?" she asked,

"You must tell me itbut not just yet. I have something to tell you first." She held out her little clenched

He straightened her fingers one by one, and took from her palm the engagementring he had given her.

"I couldn't bring myself to it, Waring. I honestly tried, but I couldn't do it."

"I began to find it out the first day of our engagement. I couldn't make it seem right. I've been in a process of

"No, I'm not. That is a minor reason. The really important one is that it wouldn't be fair to me."

"I said mine. At any rate, if three knew, it wouldn't be a secret," was her quick retort.

"Do you think you have been quite fair to me, Virginia?" he asked, with gloomy dignity.

"I think so," she answered, and touched him with the riposte: "I'm ready now to have you tell me when you

His dignity collapsed like a pricked bladder. "How did you know?" he demanded, in astonishment.

"Oh, you thought! You are a pair of children at the game," this thousandyearold young woman scoffed. "I

"Hit somebody of your size, Warry," she interrupted cheerfully, as to an infant. "If you suppose I am so

guileless as not to know that you were coming here this afternoon to tell me you were regretfully compelled

to give me up on account of a more important engagement, then you conspicuously fail to guess right. I read

He gave up attempting to reprove her. It did not seem feasible under the circumstances. Instead, he held out

"Well," he smiled, "it seems possible that we may both soon be subjects for congratulation. That just shows

"I'm quite sure we shouldn't," agreed Virginia promptly. "But I don't think I'll trouble you to congratulate me

"We'll hope for the best," he said cheerfully. "If it is the man I think, he is a better man than I am."

She settled herself back in the low easy chair, with her hands clasped behind her head.

"And now I'd like to know why you prefer her to me," she demanded saucily. "Do you think her handsomer?"

He looked her over from the rippling brown hair to the trim suede shoes. "No," he smiled; "they don't make

"I find her so, saving your presence." "Please justify yourself in detail." He shook his head, still smiling. "My

justification is not to be itemized. It lies deeperin destiny, or fate, or whatever one calls it."

"Perhaps we are led and our loves are fated, And our steps are counted one by one; Perhaps we shall meet and

The immobile butler, as once before, presented a card for her inspection. Ridgway, with recollections of the

Virginia blushed to her hair, and this time did not offer the card for his disapproval.

The imperious blood came to her cheeks on the instant. The sudden storm in her eyes warned him better than

His goodness took the form of a speedy departure. She followed him to the door for a parting fling at him.

"In your automobile you may reach a telegraphoffice in about five minutes. With luck you may be engaged

"You ought to thank me on your knees for having saved you a wretched scene this afternoon," was the best

Miss Balfour was blushing when she returned to Hobart. He mistook the reason, and she could not very well

explain that her blushes were due to the last wordless retort of the retiring "old love," whose hand had gone

Their conversation started stiffly. He had come, he explained, to say goodby. He was leaving the State to go

This gave her a chance to congratulate him upon his election. "I haven't had an opportunity before. You've

been so busy, of course, preparing to save the country, that your time must have been very fully occupied."

He did not show his surprise at this interpretation of the fact that he had quietly desisted from his attentions to

her, but accepted it as the correct explanation, since she had chosen to offer it.

Miss Balfour expressed regret that he was going, though she did not suppose she would see any less of him

than she had during the past two months. He did not take advantage of her little flings to make the talk less

formal, and Virginia, provoked at his aloofness, offered no more chances. Things went very badly, indeed,

for ten minutes, at the end of which time Hobart rose to go. Virginia was miserably aware of being wretched

despite the cool hauteur of her seeming indifference. But he was too good a sportsman to go without letting

"I hope you will be very happy with Mr. Ridgway. Believe me, there is nobody whose happiness I would so

"Thank you," she smiled coolly, and her heart raced. "May I hope that your good wishes still obtain even

He held her for an instant's grave, astonished questioning, before which her eyes fell. Her thoughts

"Am I being toldyou must pardon me if I have misunderstood your meaningthat you are no longer

Her racing heart assured her fearfully, delightfully, that she did not mind at all.

"I have no time and no compass to take my bearings. You will pardon me if what I say seems

Silence, which is not always golden, oppressed her. Why could she not make light talk as she had been wont

"But if I ask too much, I shall not be hurt if you deny me," he continued. "For how long has your engagement

"On the contrary, quite final and irrevocable Mr. Ridgway and I have never been lovers. She was not sure

"Not lovers?" He waited for her to explain Her proud eyes faced him. "We became engaged for other reasons.

I thought that did not matter. But I find my other reasons were not sufficient. Today I terminated the

engagement. But it is only fair to say that Mr. Ridgway had come here for that purpose. I merely anticipated

him." Her selfcontempt would not let her abate one jot of the humiliating truth. She flayed herself with a

A wave of surging hope was flushing his heart, but he held himself well in hand.

"I must be presumptuous still," he said. "I must find out if you broke the engagement because you care for

She tried to meet his shining eyes and could not. "You have no right to ask that."

"Perhaps not till I have asked something else. I wonder if I should have any chance if I were to tell you that I

Her glance swept him shyly with a delicious little laugh. "You never can tell till you try."