ss
or notice me. Spend what money you like in following my evening
rounds. I'll repay it all. I am going to lead them a merry dance.
Every day, before I leave the office, I will give you a different
rendezvous, up to midnight. You are simply to hover around, ignore
me, and then skilfully shadow my pursuers."

The service of the Western Trading Company now galled Randall
Clayton like the galley slave's chain. And yet Jack Witherspoon's
counsel had been most wise. For Clayton knew not who had replaced
the treacherous Ferris in that secret espionage, so necessary to
Worthington until the great "deal" had been consummated.

"Lies, lies, all lies," muttered Clayton, as he read the friendly,
almost fatherly, letters of Hugh Worthington announcing his intended
tour around the world. "The old fox," sneered Clayton, as he read
the "rider" to the capitalist's letter.

"Ferris will have my power of attorney, and he alone will communicate
with me. If Alice's health demands it, I may vary my route and look
around in the Sierras, or take the summer run to Alaska. I fear
the heat of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. But all will depend
upon the doctors and their advice.

"Report only to Ferris as to any thing you wish to reach me. He
will have my private cipher. All the rest is mere routine."

But the words of the old money-grabber angered Clayton less than
Ferris' effusive friendly epistles from Detroit.

"I can excuse Worthington," growled Clayton, as he paced his private
room like a caged tiger. "He has his old crime to cover up, his
only daughter to shield, his vast plans to further. I am only a poor
pawn in his fevered game of life; but Ferris, 'mine own familiar
friend,' he is a traitor, a needless traitor, to his black heart's
core.

"For it is the sale of a soul, his dirty traffic in my heart's
secrets, a Benedict Arnold of the heart, for mere dirty gain. And
his cold ensnaring of this innocent girl is an outrage; it is a
crime to make her the hostage of Senator Durham's corrupt friendship."

And yet, mindful of Jack Witherspoon's counsel, he took up the
trade of an honest Iago, and hid his raging hatred behind the mask
of an olden gratitude to the one, a loyal friendship to the other.

The searchlight of his mind was turned only on the Western conspirators,
and he feared no villainy in the world save the Detroit schemer who
had robbed him of his birthright. "By Heavens! I'll give up trade,
the service of this