uess why? Well, just because of what
I tell you; I've come to myself, Jim, and I've got to get out."

"Why? Why have you got to get out?"

Roger Payne shook a hard brown fist at the gray-stone walls of the
other side of the clanging street.

"That's why, Jim. It's a prison--to me. Easy enough if you fit in it.
I don't. So I'm going to get out; and it's got to be now."

"But why, in the name of Sam, now? You're getting old, I'll admit.
Let's see, how long ago is it since I gave you that scarfpin for your
twenty-seventh birthday? Twenty-seven! Come out of it, Rog.
Fifty-seven is the proper age to begin dreaming about quitting
business."

"I know it. That's why I'm going to do it now, before the game gets
me. It gets everybody who stays in it. It would even get me. Then at
fifty-seven, as you say, I might quit and go outdoors and begin to
live--too late. Jim, did you ever see a more pitiful spectacle than a
natural-born outdoor man who's kept his nose on a desk for thirty years
and then realized his lifelong dream? Neither have I. He thinks he's
going to get out and start living then, but what he does is to begin to
die--from the shoulders up. No, sir!" The young man sprang to his
feet, flinging the swivel chair away with a kick. "I'm not going to be
trapped. I'd rather hike back to-morrow to that irrigation job out
West and boss Hunkies for Higgins than sit cooped up here day after day
and get rich."

"You--crazy young fool!" said Tibbetts affectionately.

"All right, Jim. Crazy, if you please. But that is what's going to
happen; you're going to buy me out, or get another partner, and I"--he
filled his great lungs with air--"I'm going to get outdoors."

"What're you going to do? I'll bet you don't know. Have you got any
plans?"

"Yes, I'm going to get out of the city the day after I wind things up
here."

"Where you going?"

"Back home to Jordan City and look the old town over, first of all."

"Jordan City! Why--why you aren't a retired farmer."

Payne laughed. "Not going to settle there, Jim."

"Oh, and after you've looked it over, what then?"

"I'll make my plans there. I don't know what it will be. But whatever
it is, it will be something that won't bring me back to town."

James Tibbetts looked long and hopefully at the browned face of his
young partner; but at what he saw there his hopes vanished.

"You're set on this, I see, Rog," he said sorrowfully.

"Cheer up, Jim