othing but what I stand in. I've got prospects, but I
can't discount prospects at the banks." The speaker laughed bitterly.
"I've reaped and I'm sowing, the same as you, Dan."

The other made a nervous motion of protest. "No; not the same as me,
Flood--not the same. It's sink or swim with me, and if you can't help
me--oh, I'd take my gruel without whining, if it wasn't for Di! It's that
that knocks me over. It's the shame to her. Oh, what a cursed ass and
fool--and thief, I've been!"

"Thief?--thief?"

Flood Rawley dropped the flaming match with which he was about to light a
cheroot, and stood staring, his dark-blue eyes growing wider, his worn,
handsome face becoming drawn, as swift conviction mastered him. He felt
that the black words which had fallen from his friend's lips--from the
lips of Diana Welldon's brother--were the truth. He looked at the plump
face, the full, amiable eyes, now misty with fright, at the characterless
hand nervously feeling the golden mustache, at the well-fed, inert body;
and he knew that, whatever the trouble or the peril, Dan Welldon could not
surmount it alone.

"What is it?" Rawley asked, rather sharply, his fingers running through
his slightly grizzled black hair, but not excitedly, for he wanted no
scenes; and if this thing could hurt Di Welldon, and action was necessary,
he must remain cool. What she was to do, Heaven and he only knew; what she
had done for him, perhaps neither understood fully as yet. "What is
it--quick?" he added, and his words were like a sharp grip upon Dan
Welldon's shoulder. "Racing?--cards?"

Dan nodded. "Yes, over at Askatoon; five hundred on Jibway, the
favorite--he fell at the last fence; five hundred at poker with Nick
Fison; and a thousand in land speculation at Edmonton, on margin.
Everything went wrong."

"And so you put your hand in the railway company's money-chest?"

"It seemed such a dead certainty--Jibway; and the Edmonton corner-blocks,
too. I'd had luck with Nick before; but--well, there it is, Flood."

"They know--the railway people--Shaughnessy knows?"

"Yes, the president knows. He's at Calgary now. They telegraphed him, and
he wired to give me till midnight to pay up or go to jail. They're
watching me now. I can't stir. There's no escape, and there's no one I can
ask for help but you. That's why I've come, Flood."

"Lord, what a fool! Couldn't you see what the end would be if your
plunging didn't come off? You--you oughtn't to bet,