ax. "And God knows it works
often enough, at that. No, he isn't dead and he is somewhere in this
corner of the Dominion. By Heaven!" his young voice rising with the
ambition in it, "if it's in my run of luck to bring him in I'll go up
for promotion in two days! And I'm going to get him!"

Sothern's smile, a little tense, seemed only the smile of age upon the
vaunting ambition of youth.

"I am not the man to doubt your ability to do pretty nearly anything
you set your mind and hand to, Max," he said after a little. And then,
"Isn't it a little strange that after all these years interest in John
Harper Drennen should awake?"

"Not so strange," replied Max. "The odd thing, perhaps, is that David
Drennen, the son, and the sort of man he seems to be, should have paid
off his father's obligation of forty thousand dollars just as soon as
he sold the Golden Girl to you people."

Sothern, offering no remark, looked merely casually interested. Max
went on.

"That's the first thing which began to stimulate dormant interest," he
said. "Queer, isn't it, that the most honest and unselfish and
altogether praiseworthy thing he has ever been known to do should
succeed chiefly in drawing attention to his father, so long thought
dead? We've had our eyes on him for pretty close to a year now. I'm
up a tree to know whether he knows his father is living, even."

"That's not all of the evidence you've got that John Harper Drennen is
alive, is it?" Sothern's voice asked quietly.

"Lord, no. That's not evidence at all. In fact, there isn't any
evidence; there's just a tip. There came a letter to the Chief in
Montreal. I got a copy of it. It said merely: 'John Harper Drennen,
wanted for embezzlement in New York, is in hiding in the North Woods
country. He is the father of David Drennen of MacLeod's Settlement.
Watch young Drennen and you'll find the thief.'"

When Max paused, leaning toward the fire for a burning splinter of wood
for his pipe, Sothern passed his hand swiftly across his eyes. As Max
straightened up the old man said:

"The letter might have said more. It doesn't give you a great deal to
work upon."

Max laughed.

"But it does. The letter wasn't signed, even, and was typewritten, so
you'd say it wasn't worth reading twice. And yet I know right now who
wrote it."

"Yes?"

"Yes." There was triumph unhidden in Max's voice, in his eyes turned
full upon Sothern's. "For I've been after that man for