can go right on from that, living on me to the tune of
forty or fifty thousand, besides what your mother will give you, with a
valet and a yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can pretend to raise
trotting-stock and play cards with your own crowd."

"Like Lorry Tuck?" Harvey put in.

"Yep; or the two De Vitre boys or old man McQuade's son. California's
full of 'em, and here's an Eastern sample while we're talking."

A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany deck-house, nickel-plated
binnacles, and pink-and-white-striped awnings puffed up the harbour,
flying the burgee of some New York club. Two young men in what they
conceived to be sea costumes were playing cards by the saloon skylight;
and a couple of women with red and blue parasols looked on and laughed
noisily.

"Shouldn't care to be caught out in her in any sort of a breeze. No
beam," said Harvey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up her
mooring-buoy.

"They're having what stands them for a good time. I can give you that,
and twice as much as that, Harve. How'd you like it?"

"Caesar! That's no way to get a dinghy overside," said Harvey, still
intent on the yacht. "If I couldn't slip a tackle better than that I'd
stay ashore. . . . What if I don't?"

"Stay ashore--or what?"

"Yacht and ranch and live on 'the old man,' and--get behind Mama where
there's trouble," said Harvey, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Why, in that case, you come right in with me, my son."

"Ten dollars a month?" Another twinkle.

"Not a cent more until you're worth it, and you won't begin to touch
that for a few years."

"I'd sooner begin sweeping out the office--isn't that how the big bugs
start?--and touch something now than--"

"I know it; we all feel that way. But I guess we can hire any sweeping
we need. I made the same mistake myself of starting in too soon."

"Thirty million dollars' worth o' mistake, wasn't it? I'd risk it for
that."

"I lost some; and I gained some. I'll tell you."

Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he looked over the still water,
and spoke away from Harvey, who presently began to be aware that his
father was telling the story of his life. He talked in a low, even
voice, without gesture and without expression; and it was a history for
which a dozen leading journals would cheerfully have paid many
dollars--the story of forty years that was at the same time the story
of the New West, whose story is yet to be written.

It began with a kinless bo