se and were waiting at the water's edge when the boat ran
up along the pile-supported platform.

CHAPTER XIV.

SPARRING FOR A FEE.

Pierce Langford drove the automobile, in which he made his first trip to
Stony Point, up to the end of the drive near the Graham cottage, and
advanced to the front entrance. The porch on which he stood awaiting the
appearance of someone to answer his knock--there was no bell at the
door--was bordered with a railing of rough-hewn, but uniformly selected,
limbs of hard wood or saplings. The main structure of the house was of
yellow pine, but the outer trimmings were mainly of such rustic material
as the railing of the porch.

The front door was open, giving the visitor a fairly good view of the
interior. The front room was large and fairly well furnished with light
inexpensive furniture, grass rugs and an assortment of nondescript,
"catch-as-catch-can," but not unattractive, art upon the walls.
Langford, who was not a sleepy schemer, was able to get a good view of
the room before any one appeared to answer his knock.

It was a woman who appeared, a sharp featured, well-dressed matron with
a challenging eye. Perhaps no stranger, or person out of the exclusive
circle that she assumed to represent ever approached her without being
met with the ocular demand, "Who are you?"

Pierce Langford recognized this demand at once. If he had been of less
indolent character this unscrupulous attorney might have made a
brilliant success as a criminal lawyer in a metropolis. The fact that he
was content with the limitations of a practice in a city of 3,500
inhabitants, Fairberry, his home town, was of itself indicative of his
indolence. And yet, when he took a case, he manifested gifts of
shrewdness that would have made many another lawyer of much greater
practice jealous.

Attorney Langford's shrewdness and indolence were alternately
intermittent. When the nerve centers of his shrewdness were stimulated
his indolence lapsed and he was very much on the alert. The present was
one of those instances. He knew something, by reputation, of the woman
who confronted him. He had had indirect dealing with her before, but he
had never met her. However, he was certain that she would recognize his
name.

"Is this Mrs. Graham?" he inquired, although he scarcely needed to ask
the question.

"It is," she replied with evidently habitual precision.

"My name is Langford--Pierce Langford," he announced, an