Few men were less given to dreaming than James Carbhoy. Usually he had no spare time on his hands for such a pastime. Dreams? Well, perhaps he occasionally let imagination run riot amidst seas of amazing figures, but that was all. All other dreams left him cold. Now it was different.

He was reclining in an old-fashioned rocker chair outside the front door of his prison. The air of the valley was soft and balmy, the sun was setting, and a wealth of ever-changing colors tinted the distant mountain-tops; a wonderful sense of peace and security reigned everywhere. So, somehow, he found himself dreaming.

He filled the chair almost to overflowing and reveled in its comfort, just as he reveled in the comfort even of his prison. His hands were clasped behind his iron-gray head, and he drank deeply of the pleasant, perfumed air. His captivity had already exceeded three weeks, and the first irritation of it had long since passed, leaving in its place a philosophic resignation characteristic of the man. He no longer strove seriously to solve the problem of his detention. During the first days of his captivity he had thought hard, and the contemplation of possible disaster to many enterprises resulting from this enforced absence had troubled him seriously, but as the days wore on and no word came from his captors his resignation quietly set in, and gradually a pleasant peace reigned in place of stormy feelings.

James Carbhoy possessed a considerable humor for a man who spent his life in multiplying, subtracting and adding numerals which represented the sum of his gains and losses in currency, and perhaps it was this which so largely helped him. His temperament should undoubtedly have been at once harsh, sternly unyielding and bitterly avaricious. In reality it was none of these things. It was his lot to cause money to make money, and the work of it was something in the nature of an amusement. He was warm-hearted and human; he loved battle and the spirit of competition. Then, too, he possessed a deplorable love for the knavery of modern financial methods. This was the underlying temperament which governed all his actions, and a warm, human kindliness saved him from many of the pitfalls into which such a temperament might well have trapped him.

As he sat there basking in the evening sunlight he felt that on the whole he rather owed his captors a debt of gratitude for introducing him to a side of life which otherwise he might never have come into contact with. He knew at the same time that such a feeling was just as absurd as that the spirit of fierce resentment had so easily died down within him. All his interests were dependent upon his own efforts for success, and here he was shut up, a prisoner, with these very affairs, for all he knew, going completely to the dogs.

His conflicting feelings made him smile, and here it was that his humor served him. After all, what did it matter? He knew that some one had bested him. It was not the first time in his life that he had been bested. Not by any means. But always in such cases he had ultimately made up the leeway and gained on the reach. Well, he supposed he would do so again. So he rested content and submitted to the pleasant surroundings of his captivity.

There was one feature of his position, however, which he seriously did resent. It was a feature which even his humor could not help him to endure with complacency. It was the simple presence of a Chinaman near him. He cordially detested Chinamen--so much so that, in all his great financial undertakings, he did not possess one cent of interest in any Chinese enterprise.

Hip-Lee was maddeningly ubiquitous. There was no escape from him. If the millionaire's fellow prisoner, the pretty teamstress, entered his room to wait on him--and their captors seemed to have forced such service upon her--Hip-Lee was her shadow. If he himself elected to go for a walk through the valley--a freedom accorded him from the first--there was not a moment but what a glance over his shoulder would have revealed the lurking, silent, furtive figure in its blue smock, watchful of his every movement, while apparently occupied in anything but that peculiar form of pastime. James Carbhoy resented this surveillance bitterly. Nor did he doubt that beneath that simple blue smock a long knife was concealed, and, probably, a desire for murder.

However, nothing of this was concerning him now. The hour was the hour of peace. The perfection of the scene he was gazing upon had cast its spell about him, and he was dreaming--really dreaming of nothing. The joy of living was upon him, and, for the time being, nothing else mattered.

In the midst of his dreaming the sound of a footstep coming round the angle of the building to his right roused him to full alertness. He glanced round quickly and withdrew his hands from behind his head.

Mechanically he drew his cigar-case from an inner pocket and selected a cigar. But he was expectant and curious, his feelings inspired by his knowledge that Hip-Lee always moved soundlessly.

His eyes were upon the limits of the house when the intruder materialized. Promptly a wave of pleasurable relief swept over him as he beheld the pretty figure of his fellow captive. But he gave no sign, for the reason that the girl was obviously unaware of his presence, and it yet remained to be seen if the yellow-faced reptile, Hip-Lee, was at hand as usual.

He watched her silently. He was struck, too, by her expression of rapt appreciation of the scene before her, which added further to his reluctance to break the spell of her enjoyment. But as the hated blue smock did not make its appearance, the man could no longer resist temptation. The opportunity was too good to miss.

"It's some scene," he said in a tone calculated not to startle her, his gray eyes twinkling genially.

But Hazel was startled. She was startled more than she cared about.

Her one object was always to avoid contact with Gordon's father, except under the watchful eyes, of Hip-Lee. She feared that keen, incisive brain she knew to lie behind his steady gray eyes. She feared questions her wit was not ready enough to answer without disaster to the plans of her fellow conspirators.

She hated the part she was forced to play, but she was also determined to play it with all her might. She must act now, and act well. So, with a resolute effort, she faced her victim.

"I--I just didn't know you were here, sir," she said truthfully, while her eyes lied an added alarm. "But--but talk low, or the----"

"You're worrying over that mongrel Chink," said Carbhoy quickly. "I expected to see his leather features following you around. I guess he's got ears as long as an ass, and just about twice as sharp. Say, I'm going to kill that mouse-colored serpent one of these times if he don't quit his games. Say----"

He broke off, studying the girl's pretty face speculatively. There was no doubt her eyes wore a hunted expression--she intended them to.

"They treating you--right?" he demanded.

Hazel's effort was better than she knew as she strove for pathos.

"Oh, yes, I s'pose so," she said hopelessly. "I'm let alone, and--I get good food. It--it isn't that."

"What is it?"

The man's question came sharply.

Hazel turned her face to the hills and sighed. The movement was well calculated.

"It's my folks." Then, with a dramatic touch, "Say, Mr. Carbhoy, do you guess we'll ever--get out of this? Do you think we'll get back to our folks? Sometimes I--oh, it's awful!"

Her words carried conviction, and the man was taken in.

"Say," he said quickly, "I'm making a big guess we'll get out later--when things are fixed. This is not a ransom. But it means--dollars."

He lit his cigar, and its aroma pleasantly scented the air.

Hazel sighed with intense feeling--to disguise her inclination to laugh.

"Yes, sir," she said hopelessly. "One hundred thousand dollars."

Gordon's father smiled back at her.

"I'd hate to think I was held up for less," he said. "It would sort of wound my vanity."

The girl could have hugged him for the serenity of his attitude.

Nothing seemed to disturb him. She felt that Gordon had every reason for his devotion to his father, and ought to be well ashamed of himself for submitting him to the outrage which had been perpetrated.

"Who--who do you think has done this?" she hazarded hesitatingly.

"Slosson?"

"Maybe. Though----"

"Slosson should have met you himself," the girl declared emphatically.

"He certainly should," replied Carbhoy, with cold emphasis. "He'll need to explain that--later. Say, how did you come to be driving me?"

Hazel suddenly felt cold in the warm air.

"I was just engaged to, because Mr. Slosson couldn't go himself. You see, father has a spare team, and I do a goodish bit of driving. You see, we need to do 'most anything to get money here."

"Yes, that's the way of things." The man's eyes were twinkling again, and Hazel began to hope that she was once more on firm ground.

Nor was she disappointed when the man went on.

"I guess we're all out after--dollars," he said reflectively. Then he removed his cigar and luxuriously emitted a thin spiral smoke from between his pursed lips. "It don't seem the sort of work a girl like you should be at, though. Still, why not? It's a great play--chasing dollars. It's the best thing in life--wholesome and human. I've always felt that way about it, and as I've piled up the years and got a peek into motives and things I've felt more sure that competition--that's fixing things right for ourselves out of the general scrum of life--is the life intended for us by the Creator."

Hazel nodded.

"Life is competition," she observed, with a wise little smile.

"Sure. That's why human nature is dishonest--has to be."

There was a question in the girl's eyes which the millionaire was prompt to detect.

"Sure it's dishonest. Can you show me a detail of human nature which is truly honest? Say, I've watched it all my life, I've built every sort of construction on it. Wherever I have built in the belief that honesty is the foundation of human nature things have dropped with a smash. Now I know, and my faith is none the less. Human nature is dishonest. It's only a question of degree. I'm dishonest. You're dishonest. But in your case it's only in the higher ethical sense.

You wouldn't steal a pocket-book. You wouldn't commit murder. But put yourself into competition with a girl friend baking a swell layer cake, calculated to disturb the digestion of an ostrich. Say, you'd resort to any old trick you could think of to fix her where you wanted her."