now! I will meet
them and beat them at their own game. Craft for craft, and I can
wait. For Irma's sake!"

On his way to the office for the first time he steadied his nerve
with the bar-keeper's aid. The blood bounded in his pulses under
the unaccustomed stimulant.

He was devil-may-care in his manner as he listlessly turned over his
morning mail, thrusting his pistol back into the bank portmanteau. The
sight of the familiar case recalled to him his dangerous position.

"I must play my policy game softly now," he mused. "Whatever
happens, I must meet Ferris smoothly; but once that Jack Witherspoon
is safely out of town to the West, I'll have him face up old Hugh.
It's either life with Irma, or death without her!"

Mechanically carrying on his routine, he opened his mail, after
exchanging a few careless words with Somers over the "new deal"
in the company's management.

"I shall get your bank deposits ready early," kindly said old
Somers. "I'm glad to see you looking better. I go away at noon
for the three-days' holiday. You can keep the bank-book, and we
can get the exchange Tuesday at noon.

"I will finish my trial balance papers while I'm up at Greenwich.
I'm only a stray few cents out."

And then Ralph Somers told Clayton of the month's gratuity. "I
guess I'll go in for a gay old Fourth!" cheerfully said Clayton,
who picked up a telegram just brought in by a boy.

His face softened strangely as he read words which waked all the
happy memories of his lonely boyhood.

Here, at last, vas a message from the woman who had been the
"Little Sister" of the few bright years of his shaded life. And
her truthful, girlish face rose up before him again, as he read
the words which touched his wavering heart. The dispatch was from
Hugh Worthington at Tacoma, and the old fox had well chosen the
only way to disarm Clayton's watchful suspicions.

The words seemed frank enough, and Randall Clayton's fingers
trembled with a certain pleasurable thrill as he read.

"She still thinks of me, poor Little Sister, after all these
years of estrangement. Perhaps only the greed of gold lies behind
the whole thing. He seized a telegraph blank and studied over his
reply.

"What shall I wire to him?" the puzzled man vainly demanded. He
tried to mark out the false and true between the words of father
and daughter. It all seemed fair enough in a way, according to
their different natures.

"Tacoma, July 2, 1897.

"Come at on