o run the launch. Afterward, I
kept on up-stream in the _Sprite_, hoping to meet you coming down; and
hoping against hope that we would be able to beat the calendar back to
Ottawa."

"We never should have beaten it if the old Scotchman hadn't taken a
hand," was Prime's comment. "He saved us at least a full day."

Grider was edging toward the door. "I guess you don't need me any more
just now," he offered. "I'm due to go and thank the good-natured lumber
king who lent me the _Sprite_. By and by, after the dust has settled a
bit, I'll come around and show you where Mr. Shellaby holds forth."

"One minute, Mr. Grider," Lucetta interposed hastily. "We can't let you
go without asking your forgiveness for the way in which we have been
vilifying you for a whole month, and for what we both said to you last
night. I must speak for myself, at least, and----"

"Don't," said Grider, laughing again. "It's all in the day's work. As it
happened, I wasn't the goat this time, but that isn't saying that I
mightn't have done something quite as uncivilized if you had given me a
chance. You two gave me one of the few perfect moments of a rather
uneventful life last night when you made me understand that you were
giving me credit for the whole thing--as a joke! I only wish I could
invent one half as good. And that reminds me, Don; can you--er--do you
think you'll be able to put a real woman into the next story?"

For some few minutes after the barbarian had ducked and disappeared a
stiff little silence fell upon the two he had left behind. In writing
about it Prime would have called it an interregnum of readjustment. He
had gone to a window to stare aimlessly down into the busy street, and
Lucetta was sitting with her chin in her cupped palms and her eyes fixed
upon the rather garish pattern of the paper on the opposite wall. After
a time Prime pulled himself together and went back to her.

"It is all changed, isn't it?" he said, in a rather flat voice.
"Everything is changed. You are no longer a teacher, working for your
living. You are an heiress, with a snug little fortune in your own
right."

She looked up at him with the bright little smile which had been brought
over intact from the days of the banished conventions.

"Whatever you say I am, you are," she retorted cheerfully. "Only I can't
quite believe it yet--about the money, you know."

"You'd better," he returned gloomily. "Besides, it is just what you said
you wanted--nei