his
hat. She kicked it into the street, and then, without looking back,
swung the gate open and ran up the path to the house.

CHAPTER XXII

MR. WATERMAN'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY

Jack Holton reappeared in Montgomery toward the end of March, showed
himself to Main Street in a new suit of clothes, intimated to old
friends that he was engaged upon large affairs, and complained bitterly
to a group of idlers at the Morton House of the local-option law that
had lately been invoked to visit upon Montgomery the curse of perpetual
thirst. He then sought Alexander Waterman in that gentleman's office.
Waterman he had known well in old times, and he correctly surmised that
the lawyer was far from prosperous. Men who married into the Montgomery
family didn't prosper, some way! An assumption that they were both
victims of daughters of the House of Montgomery may have entered into
his choice of Waterman as a likely person to precipitate a row in
Sycamore affairs. It was with a purpose that he visited Waterman's
office on the Mill Street side of the court-house, over Redmond's
undertaking parlors--a suggestive proximity that had not been neglected
by local humorists.

"This is your chance, old man, to take up a fight for the people that
can't fail to make you solid. What this poor old town needs is a leader.
They're all sound asleep, dead ones, who'd turn over and take another
nap if Gabriel blew his horn. These fellows are getting ready to put
over the neatest little swindle ever practiced on a confiding public.
The newspapers are in it--absolutely muzzled. I won't lie to you about
my motive in coming to you. I'm sore all over from the knocks I've got.
My dear brother Will has kicked me out; actually told me he'd have me
arrested if I ever showed up here again. Like a fool I sent word to
Kirkwood that I could be of service in getting to the bottom of
Sycamore; thought he'd let bygones be bygones when it came to straight
business, but, by George, he didn't even answer my letter! Cold as a
frozen lobster, and always was! You see I thought it was all on the
level--his tinkering with the traction company--but he's in on the
shrewdest piece of high finance that was ever put over in Indiana. Talk
about my lamented brother Samuel--Sam never started in his class!"

Waterman, with his ponderous swivel-chair tipped back against the
Indiana Reports that lined the wall, listened guardedly. It was not
wholly flattering to be chosen by a