Gordon had nothing to hide. There was, it seemed to him, a fatal magnetism about these people. The girl's eyes were upon him, full of amused delight at the story he had told; while her father seemed to be driving towards some definite goal.

"Five thousand dollars. That and a few hundred dollars I had to my credit at the bank. It don't sound much," he added apologetically, "but perhaps it isn't quite impossible."

"I don't guess there's a thing impossible in this world for the feller who's got to make good," said Mallinsbee. "You see, you've got to make good, and it don't matter a heap if your stake's five hundred or five thousand. Say, talk's just about the biggest thing in life, but it's made up of hot air, an' too much hot air's mighty oppressive. So I'll just get to the end of what I've to say as sudden as I can. I guess my gal's right, I'm just crazy to beat the 'sharps' on this land scoop, and I'm going to do it if I get brain fever. Now it's quite a proposition. I've got to play the railroad and all these ground sharks, and see I get the juice while they only get the pie-crust. I'm needing a--we'll call him a secretary. Hazel is all sorts of a bright help, but she ain't a man. I need a feller who can swear and scrap if need be, and one who can scratch around with a pen in odd moments.

This thing is a big fight, and the man who's got the biggest heart and best wind's going to win through. My wind's sound, and I ain't heard of any heart trouble in my family. Now you ken come in in town plots so that when the boom comes they'll net you that one hundred thousand dollars. You don't need to part with that stake--yet. The deal shall be on paper, and the cash settlement shall come at the finish.

Meanwhile, if need be, for six months you'll put in every moment you've got on the work of organizing this boom. Maybe we'll need to scrap plenty. But I don't guess that'll come amiss your way. We'll hand this shanty over for quarters for you, and we'll share it as an office.

This ain't philanthropy; it's business. The man who's got no more sense than to call a bluff to make one hundred thousand dollars in six months is the man for me. He'll make it or he won't. And, anyway, he's going to make things busy for six months. You ain't a 'sharp'

now--or I wouldn't hand you this talk. But I'm guessin' you'll be mighty near one before we're through. We've got to graft, and graft plenty, which is a play that ain't without attractions to a real bright feller. You see, money's got a heap of evil lyin' around its root--well, the root of things is gener'ly the most attractive. Guess I've used a deal of hot air in makin' this proposition, but you won't need to use as much in your answer--when you've slept over it. Say, if food's through we'll get busy, Hazel."

Mrs. James Carbhoy was in bed when she received her morning's mail.

Perhaps she and her millionaire husband were unusually old-fashioned in their domestic life. Anyway, James Carbhoy's presence in the great bedstead beside her was made obvious by the heavy breathing which, in a less wealthy man, might have been called snoring, and the mountainous ridge of bedclothes which covered his monumental bulk.

A querulous voice disturbed his dreams. He heard it from afar off, and it merged with the scenes he was dwelling upon. A panic followed. He had made a terrible discovery. It was his wife, and not the president of a rival railroad, who was stealing the metals of a new track he was constructing as fast as he could lay them.

He awoke in a cold sweat. He thought he was lying in the cutting beside the track. His wife had vanished. He rubbed his eyes. No, she hadn't. There she was, sitting up in bed with a sheaf of papers in her hand. He felt relieved.

Now her plaint penetrated to his waking consciousness.

"For goodness' sake, James," she cried, "quit snoring and wake up. I wish you'd pay attention when I'm speaking. I'm all worried to death."

The multi-millionaire yawned distressingly.

"Most folks are worried in the morning. I'm worried, too. Go to sleep. You'll feel better after a while."

"It's nothing to do with the morning," complained his wife.

"It's--it's a letter from Gordon. The poor boy writes such queer letters. It's all through you being so hard on him. You never did have any feeling for--for anybody. I'm sure he's suffering. He never talked this way before. Maybe he don't get enough to eat; he don't say where he is either. Perhaps he's just nowhere in particular. You'd better ring up an inquiry bureau----"

"For goodness' sake read the letter," growled the drowsy man. "You're making as much fuss as a hen with bald chicks."

Mrs. Carbhoy withered her husband with a glance that fell only upon the back of his great head. But she had her way. She meant him to share in her anxiety through the text of the, to her, incomprehensible letter. She read slowly and deliberately, and in a voice calculated to rivet any wandering attention.

"DEAREST MUM:

"There's folks who say that no man knows the real meaning of luck, good or bad, till he takes to himself a wife. This may be right. My argument is, it's only partially so. There may be considerable luck about matrimony. For instance, if any fool man came along and married our Gracie he'd be taking quite a chance. Her native indolence and peevishness suggest possibilities. Her tongue is vitriolic in one so young, as I have frequently had reason to observe. This would certainly be a case where the man would learn the real meaning of luck.

But there wouldn't be a question. His luck would be out--plumb out.

Jonah would have been a mascot beside him.

"This is by the way.

"I argue luck can be appreciated fully through channels less worrying.

When luck gets busy around its coming is kind of subtle. It's sudden, too; kind of butts in unnoticed, sometimes painfully, and generally without shouting. Maybe it happens with a bump or a jar. Personally I'm betting on the 'bump' play. A bump of that nature got busy my way when I arrived here. I now have a full appreciation of luck. Quite as full an appreciation as the man would who married our Gracie. But in my case I guess it's good luck. This isn't going to tell you all that's in my mind, but, seeing I haven't fallen for fiction yet, I guess I won't try to be more explicit. Luck, in my present position, means the coming responsibility of success. You might hand this on to the old Dad.

"Talking of the old Dad, it seems to me that, for a delicate digestion, baked custard and fruit have advantages over ice-cream as a sweet.

This again is by the way.

"In my last letter I gave you a few first impressions on arrival at my destination. Now, if you'll permit, I'll add what I might call the maturer reflections of a mind wide awake to life as it really is, and to the inner meaning of those things which are so carefully hidden from one brought up in luxury, as I have been. One of the 'dead snips' this way is that cleverness and wisdom are often confused by the ignorant.

Cleverness don't mean wisdom, and--vice versa. For instance, loafing idly down a main street six inches deep in a dust that would shame a blizzard when the wind blows, with a blazing sun scorching the marrow of the spine till it's ready to be spread out on toast, escorted by an army of disgusting flies moving in massed formation, and not knowing better than to drive your soul to perdition through the channel of extreme bad language, don't suggest cleverness. Yet there may surely be a deal of wisdom in it if it only keeps you from doing something a heap more foolish. Maybe this don't sound altogether bright, but there's quite a deal in it. Think it out. Another thought is that learning's quite a sound proposition. For instance, a superficial knowledge of geology may come mighty handy at unexpected moments. A knowledge of this served me at a critical moment only to-day. So you see an intimate acquaintance with sharp flints, collected--the acquaintance, not the flints--during my time as the possessor of an automobile, which the Dad provided me with and for the upkeep of which he so kindly paid, has likely had more influence upon my future life than the best talk ever handed out by a Fifth Avenue preacher ever would have done. I have no thought of being irreverent. I am merely handing you a fact. People say that missed opportunities always make you hate to think of them in after life. For my part, I've generally figured this to be the philosophic hot air of a man who's getting old and hates to see youth around him, or else the chin mush of some fool man who's never had any opportunities, talking through the roof of his head. I kind of see it different now. You gave me the opportunity of studying all the beauties of the world seen through an artist's life.

I guessed at the time that would be waste of precious moments that might be spent chasing athletics. It's only to-day I've got wise to what a heap I've lost in twenty-four years. Colors just seemed to me messy mixtures only fit to spoil paper and canvas with. Well, to-day I've hit on something in the way of color that's just about set me crazy to see it all the time. It's a sort of yellowy, greeny brown.

That don't sound as merry as it might, but to me it talks plenty. It's just the dandiest color ever. I discovered it out on a 'long, lone trail'--that's how folks talk in books--where the surroundings weren't any improvement on just plain grass. Say, Mum, I guess that color is great. It gets a grip on you so you don't seem to care if a local freight train comes along and dissects your vitals, and chews them up ready for making a delicatessen sausage. When I die I'll just have to have my shroud dyed that color, and my coffin fixed that way, too.

"This isn't so much of a passing thought as the others. Guess some folks might figure it to be a disease. Maybe the old Dad would. Well, I shan't kick any if I die of it.

"Talking of Art, I'm just beginning to get a notion that curves are wonderful, wonderful things. These days of mechanical appliances I've always regarded drawing such things by hand as positively ridiculous.

I don't think that way now. If I could only draw the wonderful curves I have in mind now, why, I guess I'd go right on drawing them till the birds roosted in my beard and my bones were right for a tame ancestral skeleton.

"The daylight of knowledge is sort of creeping in.

"I've learned that frame houses have got Fifth Avenue mansions beat a mile, and the smell of a Chinee can become a dollar-and-a-half scent sachet in given circumstances. I've learned that real sportsmanship isn't confined to athletics by any means, and a lame chestnut horse can be a most friendly creature. I've discovered that one man of purpose isn't more than fifty per cent. of two, when both are yearning one way.

I'm learning that life's a mighty pleasant journey if you let it alone and don't worry things. It's no use kicking to put the world to rights. It's going to give you a whole heap of worry, and, anyway, the world's liable to retaliate. Also I'd like to add that, though I guess I'm gathering wisdom, I don't reckon I've got it all by quite a piece.

"Having given you all the news I can think of I guess I'll close.

"Your affectionate son, "GORDON.

"P.S.--My remarks about Gracie are merely the privileged reflections of a brother. When she grows up I dare say she'll be quite a bully girl.

It takes time to get sense.

"G."

"I don't understand it, anyway," sighed Gordon's mother, as she laid the letter aside. "You'll have to get him back to home, James. He's suffering. We'll send out an inquiry----"

She broke off, glancing across at the mass of humanity so peacefully snoring at the far side of the bed, and, after a brief angry moment, resigned herself to the reflection that men, even millionaires, were perfectly ridiculous and selfish creatures who had no right whatever to burden a poor woman's life with the responsibility of children.

CHAPTER IX

THE FIRST CHECK

It was characteristic of Gordon to act unhesitatingly once a decision was arrived at. The consideration of Silas Mallinsbee's generous offer was the work of just as many seconds as it took the rancher to make it in. Though, verbally, it was left for a decision the next day, Gordon had no doubts in his mind whatever as to the nature of that decision.

When he returned to McSwain's sheltering roof, when another meal had been devoured in the evening, when the soup-like contents of the wash-trough had been stirred in the doubtful effort of cleansing himself, when the busy flies had gone to join the birds in their evening roost, he betook himself to his private bathroom, and sat himself upon his questionable bed and gave himself up to reflection, endeavoring to apply some of the wisdom he believed himself to have already acquired.

But the application was without useful effect.

He began by an attempt to review the situation from a purely financial standpoint, and in this endeavor he stretched out his great muscular limbs along his bed, and propped his broad back against the wall with a dogged do-or-die look upon his honest face.

At once a mental picture of Hazel Mallinsbee obscured the problem. He dwelt on it for some profoundly pleasant moments, and then resolutely thrust it aside.

Next he started by frankly admitting that Mallinsbee's offer left him a certain winner all along the line--if things went right. Good. If things went wrong--but they couldn't go wrong with those wonderful yellowy brown eyes of Hazel's smiling encouragement upon him. The thought was absurd.

Again for some time his problem was obscured. But after a few minutes he set his teeth and attacked it afresh.

Of course, if things did go wrong he was done--absolutely finished.