m.

Half an hour later he was conferring with Jones, the erstwhile elevator
boy and rabid proletarian whom Daylight long before had grubstaked to
literature for a year. The resulting novel had been a failure.
Editors and publishers would not look at it, and now Daylight was using
the disgruntled author in a little private secret service system he had
been compelled to establish for himself. Jones, who affected to be
surprised at nothing after his crushing experience with railroad
freight rates on firewood and charcoal, betrayed no surprise now when
the task was given to him to locate the purchaser of a certain sorrel
mare.

"How high shall I pay for her?" he asked.

"Any price. You've got to get her, that's the point. Drive a sharp
bargain so as not to excite suspicion, but buy her. Then you deliver
her to that address up in Sonoma County. The man's the caretaker on a
little ranch I have there. Tell him he's to take whacking good care of
her. And after that forget all about it. Don't tell me the name of the
man you buy her from. Don't tell me anything about it except that
you've got her and delivered her. Savvee?"

But the week had not passed, when Daylight noted the flash in Dede's
eyes that boded trouble.

"Something's gone wrong--what is it?" he asked boldly.

"Mab," she said. "The man who bought her has sold her already. If I
thought you had anything to do with it--"

"I don't even know who you sold her to," was Daylight's answer. "And
what's more, I'm not bothering my head about her. She was your mare,
and it's none of my business what you did with her. You haven't got
her, that's sure and worse luck. And now, while we're on touchy
subjects, I'm going to open another one with you. And you needn't get
touchy about it, for it's not really your business at all."

She waited in the pause that followed, eyeing him almost suspiciously.

"It's about that brother of yours. He needs more than you can do for
him. Selling that mare of yours won't send him to Germany. And that's
what his own doctors say he needs--that crack German specialist who
rips a man's bones and muscles into pulp and then molds them all over
again. Well, I want to send him to Germany and give that crack a
flutter, that's all."

"If it were only possible" she said, half breathlessly, and wholly
without anger. "Only it isn't, and you know it isn't. I can't accept
money from you--"

"Hold on, now," he interrupted. "Wouldn't y