"Then you are dependent upon this old skinflint's bounty," answered the lawyer, "for you have no profession, no backing, no capital.

He wished to leave you helpless in his hands; I see it all. The crafty old fox! To watch you during your boyhood, to railroad you away from Michigan, and to hoodwink you as to your possible rights.

Never mind, old man; I will be back in three months, and if you will confide in me, we may frighten a good sum out of Worthington.

"But you must let this annual election go on undisturbed. Smile and keep your counsel. Let this sleek ferret Ferris, go on and marry the girl, for I, alone, can aid you. Worthington fears me. I know too much of his secret operations.

"When I get you a slice of your lost patrimony, you can break loose, find yourself a fitting mate, and lead the life of a man, and not a galley-slave. Oh! It has been a beautifully worked scheme. The parchment-faced old wretch!"

"What do you mean? Explain yourself! Have I been tricked like a dog my whole life?" cried Randall Clayton, the hidden espionage and Ferris' duplicity returning to arouse him into a glow of rage.

"I mean only this," coolly answered Jack Witherspoon, "our railroad has just agreed to pay Hugh Worthington two millions of dollars for two hundred acres of outlying city lands, to be used as our lumber and ore and stock-handling depots. The lake commerce has increased a thousand fold.

"I had still supposed it was only railroad rivalry which caused our people to keep the purchase secret and to record only a ninety-nine year lease, when they had Hugh Worthington's guarantee deed in their possession.

"He takes the whole purchase price out in freights, paid in to him by your cattle trust, and with this same money he buys the majority of the outlying stock."

"How does this touch me?" cried the now thoroughly angered Clayton.

"Because your father deeded all the real estate holdings of Clayton & Worthington to his partner before the old trouble came on. Only this, a then valueless, tract was forgotten.

"In honor and equity you are entitled to one-half as Everett Clayton's heir."

The young cashier clenched his fists in anguish, as Witherspoon sadly said: "But he has had twenty-one years' unbroken possession.

You were of age seven years ago, and he allowed it to be sold for taxes every year, and has also secretly bought up all the tax titles. It is too late. But wait, keep silent, and trust to me."

CHAPTER III.

IN MAGDAL'S PHARMACY.

Randall Clayton and his friend heard the "chimes at midnight" after the disquieting disclosures. Witherspoon finally allayed Clayton's sudden distrust. The Detroit lawyer succeeded in lamely explaining his own delay in making the fraud known.

"You see, Randall," he finally said at parting for the night, "I must live my life in Detroit under the heel of these great operators.

"I intended to take this long hidden matter up on my return from this trip, but I have been carried on, into a premature confidence.

"Just take care of yourself and bide your time! I want Worthington to consummate the whole deal. I wish the marriage and the election to take place undisturbed by clamor. For Worthington has put a fancy price on the land. It is to-day only worth a million at market rates. We, however, get immediate possession and pay in hauling, but the real extra million comes out of the pockets of the Cattle Trust, for as President, Worthington sells his own land really to the Cattle Company for two million dollars.

"He has duties as a Trustee to all the stockholders of the cattle association. When all is over, when Ferris is his son-in-law, I will have Senator Durham connected with this matter. The young couple will set up in royal style.

"I will then open out on Hugh Worthington, lay all the uncontested facts before him, and bring him to bay! I will soon squeeze out of him a fortune for you and also one for me. I only want twenty-five per cent. of the recovery. That will be a guarantee against my losing my place as railroad attorney. But old Hugh will never dare to "squeal." He wants social quiet, and he does not care to have his toga of respectability ripped up."

"Your motive?" agnostically demanded Clayton. I am poor, friendless; you will risk much in this."

"There's a sweet little dark-eyed French-descended angel in Detroit, whom I will then marry at once," smilingly answered Jack Witherspoon, "that is, as soon as Papa Worthington has given me the sinking fund. Any college man is a fool now who marries in these days unless he has the assured income on the principal of a quarter of a million."

"Money is the one thing, my boy," sighed Jack. "Without it, Venus herself, ever young and ever fair, would be a millstone around any man's neck, in these later days. Great God! How you missed it!

If I had only stumbled on this discovery sooner. You could have antedated Ferris' crafty game.

"You could have easily married Alice. She has often told my Francine that you were the noblest of men."

But the moody Randall Clayton had tired already of hearing Miss Francine Delacroix's praises in divers keys.

"Poor Little Sister," muttered Randall Clayton. "Traded off to a senator's nephew, for an illicit government pull. Damn all treachery!" he growled, as he stalked off to bed.

He felt that he was powerless in his calculating friend's hands, and yet, the possibilities of a coming future swept him from his feet. He wanted money now but for one purpose--revenge upon Arthur Ferris.

"Of course," he growled, "the dog knew the whole deal, and has been a secret guardian over me, in the interest of the thief who has robbed my father's grave. Poor, dear old Dad! If he had only remembered these cheap lands and set them aside for me. It was the only real estate holding forgotten in the hard-driven bargain which vastly enriched old Hugh. But old Hugh shall pay; yes, to the last farthing. I will lock up my heart. I will circumvent his spies, and then await my own hour of triumph. It will be a fight to the finish and no quarter asked or given. I swear it!"

A thorough confidence was reestablished between the two collegians before the coming of Monday morning took Randall Clayton back to his money mill. His first impulse to give up the apartment had returned to him. He now loathed the memory of Arthur Ferris as the slimy snake in the grass; and yet he resisted his desire to shove all the traitor's traps into a storage warehouse.

"Be ruled by me, Randall," urged Jack Witherspoon, as he set out on Monday morning for his last business conferences with the New York end of his railroad employers.

"I will surely make Hugh give up the million. You shall have your three-quarters, for it would be ruin to Worthington to drag out his relations with Durham."

"Play the honest Iago. Keep your counsel. Dismiss this from you mind. Make love to some pretty girl, amuse yourself. Do anything but drink or gamble. Keep up a jolly mien. Go in to the summer pleasures a little. It will throw these two crafty ones off their guard. The weeks will soon roll around. I will cable you of my return.

"Then we will jointly descend upon this new combination of Worthington, Durham, and Ferris. But I must first be in Detroit, back in my impregnable railroad law fortress. Then, at my nod, he settles or down come the gates of Gaza on him! Remember that you have no one in your matrimonial eye. I want to win Francine Delacroix's home from these robbers. And then install the little dainty therein. I will go in and win for you!"

The college comrades had now unravelled all the past, and their Sunday outing had after all been a jolly one. Thoroughly reassured, Clayton had given Jack Witherspoon his whole history, and the future campaign was laid out in all its details.

"As for these Fidelity Company men," said Jack, "you can give them the go by in only frequenting secluded places.

"As long as you avoid the public resorts of New York, they cannot reach you. But keep your eyes always open. And, remember, secrecy above all. If Hugh Worthington should divine our plan to unveil his devilment, you might be the victim of some 'strange accident!'

"Money has a long arm in these days," ominously said the lawyer, "and, it can strike with remorseless power. So, keep on here, but look out for yourself.

"I shall not come back to your rooms. I will send for my luggage; go down to the Astor House, and you must not be seen in the streets with me. I want Worthington to think that I have dug up his villainy all alone.

"Otherwise you would suffer in some strange way.

"When I open my battery, you must publicly resign your place by a simple telegram. And then jump out of New York to some secret haunt until I telegraph you to come to Detroit and make your deeds for the stolen property."

Clayton saw the cogency of his friend's reasoning, and, after agreeing to meet Witherspoon in the Astor Rotunda each evening until the sailing of the "Fuerst Bismarck," he proceeded to the office to take up the white man's burden.

Swinging down Fourteenth Street from Broadway, he paused once more to look at the lovely Danube scene smiling out from the window of the Newport Art Gallery.

It was an exquisite artist proof and bore the name of the Viennese artist and a pencilled address. "I'll buy it at once," thought the man whose memory now brought back that lovely, wistful face.

As his foot was on the doorstep he paused. "No! It may bring her back to me! When I go out to the bank I can step in and secure it.

It can remain on exhibition in the window for a few days. She may be there again to-day, who knows?"

He was under the spell of the unknown beauty again, as he absently exclaimed, "Pardon me!" when he rudely jostled a sedate-looking gentleman emerging from the gallery. "My fault, sir," courteously remarked Mr. Fritz Braun, beaming benevolently through his blue glass eye screens.

The pharmacist turned and raised a warning finger as Clayton hastened away to resume his morning duties.

In the doorway, following Braun's mouse-colored overcoat, as he mingled with the "madding crowd," stood Mr. Adolph Lilienthal, the proprietor of the "Art Emporium."