"I don't want any advice! I want you to help me compound a felony."

"My dear Willa!" His rotund face paled. "Are you serious? You cannot realize what you have said!"

"Oh, yes, I can!" she affirmed. "A friend of mine signed a check with a name that wasn't given to him in baptism, and I want you to see that it goes through all right, and nothing happens. I'll give you my own check out of Dad's money to cover the amount, and that'll be a comfort to you; you'll know where some of it is, at any rate."

"Forgery!" he groaned. "It is outrageous, Willa! Scandalous! A young woman of your position consorting with a criminal! Oh, we have all been too easy with you; we permitted you to defy us, and now you will disgrace the name you bear! I knew that you had been a.s.sociated with desperadoes of the lowest type, but I thought that now--"

"Just a minute, Mr. North!" Her tone was ominous. "We'll leave my old friends out of this, if you don't mind."

But Mr. North was far too agitated to take heed.

"This will kill your Cousin Irene--!"

"I expect it would," she interposed soberly. "But she will never know it, Mr. North. What I tell you now must never go beyond this room."

Forthwith, Willa related the whole story just as it had fallen from Vernon's unhappy lips, and the attorney listened in consternation. She eliminated, however, all mention of Wiley's knowledge that the check was a forgery and his attempt to drive a bargain on the strength of it.

"Mr. Wiley meant to put the check through, of course, but he mislaid it,"

she subst.i.tuted. "When he returned a few days ago, he came upon it among his papers and told Vernon this afternoon that he was going to turn it in at his bank. Vernon couldn't tell him the truth, because--well, you wouldn't want a thing like that to be known outside the family, would you? You are different, you know."

"Why didn't that young whelp come to me?" North snorted. "It's a wonder his sly wits didn't grasp the fact that I wouldn't prosecute, because of his father, but I might have started something I couldn't stop short of a scandal if the check had been put through and I not known he was at the bottom of it."

"He was afraid," Willa explained simply. "He isn't really bad, he's only weak, and I guess you-all have hounded him so that he's just about ready to stick up a train! He's out in the drawing-room now, and just as soon as you let me write a check for you I'll bring him in."

"You'll write no check!" thundered North. "Just you send him in here to me."

"But I must!" Willa pleaded. "Don't you see, it's the turning-point for him. Let him realize he owes me that money and if he hasn't got a yellow streak a mile wide, it'll be the making of him. If you just blow him up and then forgive him, he'll be back where he was before it happened, and liable to repeat it. I've known some pretty rough characters, as you said a while ago; you learn a lot about human nature in a place like the Blue Chip, Mr. North, and I've seen men going the way Vernon's headed for, just because n.o.body believed there was anything in him to hold him back. I'm trusting Vernon to pay it back and that's the very reason why he will."

Mr. North cleared his throat.

"You're a--a d.a.m.n'-fine young woman, Willa Murdaugh--and an uncommonly wise one! We'll give the boy a chance. I hope he will realize some day what he owes to you."

Willa hesitated and then her native honesty came uppermost.

"I haven't done this for him alone. I can't say that I wouldn't have, of course, but I'm just freezing him out this hand." She smiled at the other's bewilderment. "It's funny how everything reduces to poker terms, isn't it? I'll send Vernon in."

"Wait! Let me understand this." North put out a detaining hand. "If you're not doing this for that young scapegrace in there I'd like to know in whose interest it is. Is there something else back of it?"

"If I tried to explain, Mr. North, you'd be in a worse muddle than ever,"

Willa told him candidly. "Dad always said you could take care of the pat hands against you if you froze out the four-flushers.--Don't scold Vernon, please. Remember, he's just balancing; a push either way will determine his course for the future. I'll wait for him."

A long half-hour pa.s.sed, but when she heard her name called in the attorney's strangely subdued tones, Willa reentered the library to find the two standing with clasped hands. Both were flushed and seemed to find difficulty in speech, but at length Vernon burst out:

"Willa, he's a trump! I never realized what an utter beast I was until now and it's just because he hasn't said anything that he might well have! It isn't only the money, though I'll work like a dog to pay that back----"

"I know you will, my boy!" North found his voice, although it was suspiciously husky. "Willa's sure of you, too."

"That's it, that's what counts! A fellow couldn't help but be straight with two such friends believing in him!" Vernon choked, but he squared his shoulders. "Will you shake hands with me, too, Willa? I'm not going to talk, I'm not going to try to thank you, but I'm going to show you! I know what friendship means now, and I mean to be worthy of it!"

Their hands clasped, and, looking into his eyes, Willa said with conviction:

"I'll bank on you, Vernon. Go in and win. It'll be a stiff game, but you can't lose for you're on the square now."

CHAPTER XIII

THE CHALLENGE

"What do you think about this?" Harrington Chase growled as his partner entered the private office the next morning. "Somebody's getting after us good and plenty!"

"Let them come!" Starr Wiley shrugged. "We're on the right side of the fence now, n.o.body can touch us. Anything from Cranmore?"

"Yes. Whoever it is that is trying to get a line on us isn't overlooking any bets. Our men have been keeping me posted on the inquiries up here, and they've got the dope so straight that it's my opinion they have reached one of the inside staff." His tones lowered and he glanced significantly toward the ground-gla.s.s part.i.tion which separated them from the small army of clerks in the outer office. "It doesn't matter, of course, but it would be just as well for the future to know if we have an enemy in camp.--Now, Cranmore wires me in code from Limasito that someone down there is mightily interested in our t.i.tles and leases and particularly in what new fields we're opening up.

I tell you, if you don't get in touch with that old woman soon, somebody will beat us to it as sure as you're alive."

"I have got a line on her." Wiley paused to light a cigar. "I told you I suspected she'd been brought up here, and I've verified it. I know where she and that hunchbacked kid were living two days ago.

They've cleared out, but I've put a couple of men on the party that will lead us straight to her. I'd like to know, though, who is so devilishly interested in our affairs."

"It is Larkin's outfit, of course. That young engineer they've got down there has spudded in the Consuegra, that you pa.s.sed up, and it's producing seven hundred and fifty barrels a day as a starter."

Wiley thrust out his jaw.

"That's all right. I know Larkin's man; Kearn Thode, his name is. I met him before out in Oklahoma, and I've no use for him. He's had little use for me, either, and between you and me, he's got less now than ever before, only he doesn't know it!" He laughed shortly. "You might be surprised to know that Larkin himself was after the Lost Souls."

"What?" Chase swirled about in his chair to face his partner.

"Fact. I don't know how he got wind of it, but as soon as Thode showed up and began nosing about I knew what his game was."

"No wonder they're b.u.t.ting in on our affairs! We'll have to do some quick work----"

Wiley laughed again.

"No fear of trouble from Thode. I beat him to it and spiked his guns at the same time. He's given it up as a bad job; that's why he tackled the Consuegra. Wait till we pull off the big noise and he'll be welcome to all the jitney gushers below the border."

"When we do," Harrington Chase observed with emphasis. "We'll have to get hold of the old dame first."

"We'll land her." Wiley smote his desk. "There isn't a woman living, young or old, who can cut the ground out from under my feet!"

But a distinct shock awaited him when he entered the club that evening, in the att.i.tude of his erstwhile ally, Vernon Halstead. He had difficulty in locating the young man at first; a survey of his usual haunts, the bar and card-rooms, failed to disclose him, but Wiley ran him to earth finally in the library, deep in a bulky and serious-looking volume.

"Improving your mind?" he sneered.

Vernon raised his eyes serenely.

"Never too late to learn, is it?" he observed. "I've found out a lot in the last day or two."

"You mean--?" Wiley dropped into a chair beside him. "Any new developments? Did she go out alone to-day?"