"Guess I've been trying to impress you with the fact that foolishness--like beauty--is only skin deep. The former applies to me.

The latter--well, I guess I must have just read about--that."

"If you're not careful you'll convince me," Hazel laughed.

"That's one of the things I'm yearning to do."

"You're talking of David Slosson," she challenged him.

Gordon nodded.

"The railroad's--chief grafter."

"And a hateful creature."

"Who's started right away to--annoy you--from the time he got around Snake's Fall."

A great surprise was looking back into Gordon's eyes.

"You're guessing. You can't know that," Hazel said, with decision.

"Maybe. Say,"--Gordon's eyes were half serious, half smiling--"a girl don't push her way past a man when he's talking to her if--he isn't annoying her."

"Then you saw him stop me on Main Street yesterday?"

"Sure." Then, after a pause, Gordon went on, "Say, tell me. We're to be fellow conspirators."

Just for one moment Hazel Mallinsbee looked him straight in the eyes.

She was thinking, thinking swiftly. Nor were her thoughts unpleasant.

For one thing she had realized that which Gordon had wished her to realize--that he was no fool. She was seeing that something in him which doubtless her father had been quick to discover. She was thinking, too, of his direct, almost dogged manner of driving home to the purpose he had in view, and she told herself she liked it. Then, too, all unconsciously, she was thinking of the open, ingenuous, smiling face of his. The handsome blue eyes which were certainly his chief attraction in looks, although his other features were sound enough. She decided at once that for all these things she liked him and trusted him. Therefore she admitted her worries.

"Yes," she said, "it's David Slosson--and your description of him is too good. He's been here two days. He came here the day before you.

He came out to see father directly he arrived, but, as you know, father was away. I had to see him. And it wasn't pleasant. Maybe you can guess his attitude. I don't like to talk of it. He took me for some silly country girl, I s'pose. Anyway I got rid of him. Then he saw me yesterday." Suddenly her face flushed, and an angry sparkle shone in her eyes. "His sort ought to be raw-hided," she declared vehemently.

Then, after a pause, in which she choked her anger back, "We got a note from him this morning to say he'd be along this afternoon. Father's going to see him. And I was scared to death you wouldn't get along in time. That's why I was waiting ready for you, and hustled you off without seeing father. I was scared the man would get around before we were away. I haven't said a word to my daddy. You see he'd kill him,"

she finished up, with a whimsical little smile.

Gordon was gazing out ahead at the great coal workings they were now approaching. But though he beheld a small village of buildings, and an astonishing activity of human beings and machinery, for the time, at least, they had no interest for him.

"I knew I was up against that man directly I saw him peeking into that store after you," he said deliberately. "Miss Mallinsbee, I'm going to ask you all sorts of a big favor. We three are going to work together for six months. Well, any time you feel worried any by that feller, don't go to your daddy, just come right along to me. I guess it would puzzle more than your daddy to kill him after I've done with him. I don't guess it's the time to talk a lot about this thing now. I don't sort of fancy big talk that way, anyhow. All I ask you is to let me know, and to be allowed to keep my own eyes on him."

Hazel shook her head.

"I don't think I can promise you anything like that," she said seriously. "But I--thank you all the same. You see, out here a girl's got to take her own chances, and I'm not altogether helpless that way."

Then she definitely changed the subject and pointed ahead. "There, what do you think of it?"

"Think of it? Why, he's a low down skunk!" cried Gordon fiercely, unable any longer to restrain his feelings.

"I wasn't speaking of him. It!" the girl laughed. "The coalpits."

"Oh!" There was no responsive laugh from Gordon. Then he added with angry pretense of enjoyment, "Fine!"

For nearly two hours they wandered round the embryonic coal village, examining everything in detail, and not without a keen interest. The place, hidden away amongst the higher foothills, was a perfect hive of industry. Great masses of machinery were lying about everywhere, waiting their turn for the attention of the engineers. Wooden buildings were in the course of construction everywhere. A small army of miners and their wives and children had already taken up their abode, and the men were at work with the engineers in the preparatory borings already in full operation.

Even to Gordon's unpracticed eye there was little doubt of the accuracy of the information he had received relating to Snake's Fall. Here there was everything required to provoke the boom he had been warned of. Here was an evidence that the boom would be a genuine one built on the solid basis of great and lasting commercial interest. Long before they started on their return journey he congratulated himself heartily upon the accident which had brought him into the midst of such an enterprise, and thanked his stars for the further chance which had brought him into contact with the train "sharp," and so with Silas Mallinsbee.

It was getting on towards the time for the Mallinsbees' evening meal when the little frame house once more came within view. There was a decided charm in its isolation. On all sides were the undulations of grass which denoted the first steps towards the foothills. There was a wonderful radiance of summer sheen upon the green world about them, and the brightness of it all, and the pleasantness, set Gordon thinking of the pity that all too soon it would be broken up almost entirely by those black and gloomy signs of man's industry when the resources of the old world have to be tapped.

However, he was content enough with the moment. The sky was blue and radiant, the earth was all so green, and the wide, wide world opened out before him in whatever direction he chose to gaze. While beside him, sitting her mare with that confident seat of a perfect horsewoman, was the most beautiful girl in all the world, a girl in whose companionship he was to spend the next six months. The gods of Fortune were very, very good to him, and he smiled as the vision of his sportsman father flashed through his mind.

But his moments of pleasant reflection were abruptly cut short.

Hazel had suddenly raised one pointing arm, and a note of concern was in her voice.

"Look," she cried. "Something's--upset my daddy."

Gordon looked in the direction of the house.

Silas Mallinsbee was pacing the veranda at a gait that left no doubt in his mind. It was the agitated walk of a man disturbed.

"What's the matter?" demanded Gordon, with some concern.

"It looks like--David Slosson," said Hazel, in a hard voice.

They rode up in silence, and the girl was the first to reach the ground.

"Daddy----" she began eagerly.

But her father cut her short. The flesh-tinted patch, which Gordon had almost forgotten, which he used to cover his left eye with, was thrust up absurdly upon his forehead. His heavy brows were drawn together in an angry frown. His tufty chin beard was aggressively thrust, his two great hands were stuck in the waist of his trousers, which gave him further an air of truculence.

"Say," he cried, his deep, rolling voice now raised to a pitch of thunder, "it's taken me fifty-six years to come up with what I've been chasing all my life. Say, I've spent years an' years huntin' around to find something meaner than a rattlesnake. Guess I come up with him to-day."

"David Slosson," cried Hazel, her eyes wide with her anger.

Her father waved her aside as she came towards him.

"No, don't you butt in. I've got to let off hot air, or--or--I'll bust."

He paced off down the little veranda, and came back again. Then he stood still, and suddenly brought one great fist down with terrific force into his other palm.

"Gee, but it's tough. Say, you ever tried to hold a slimy eel?" he cried, glaring fiercely into Gordon's questioning eyes. "No? It's a heap of a dirty and unsatisfact'ry job, but it ain't as dirty as dealing with Mr. David Slosson, nor half as unsatisfact'ry. You can stamp your heel on it, and crush it into the ground. With David Slosson you just got to talk pretty and fence while you know he's got you beat all along the line, an' all the time you're just needin' to kill him all to death. Of all the white-livered bums. Say, if only the good God would push him right into these two hands an' say squeeze him. Say----" He held out his two clenched fists as though he were wringing out a sponge.

Gordon raked his hair with one hand.

"Do you need to worry that way, Mr. Mallinsbee? I owe him some myself."

The old man glared for some moments. Then a subtle smile crept into his eyes. Hazel saw it, and seized the opportunity.

"Let's get right inside and have food. You can tell us then, Daddy.

You see, Mr. Van Henslaer's one of our confederates now. He's come along to tell you so."