playing the game himself,
directing the pawns."

"And there is no other interest?"

"A friend's interest. For," smiling at him, "I believed what you said
when you told me that we were going to be friends."

"We are." He spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "You have talked very plainly
to me to-day, and I can do no more and no less than to thank you. You
have told me several things. Some of them are true. I don't know that
I agree with the others. You have a way of looking at life, at the
world, which is new to me. I must think it all over. I shall know how
to think, what to do, to-morrow."

She looked at him questioningly.

"For to-morrow I shall have decided. And then I shall ask for my time
and quit, or--"

"Or--?" she asked, quickly.

"Or I shall tie into my work in earnest. I wonder which it will be?"

"I don't wonder at all!" she cried, softly, her eyes very bright. "And
to-morrow evening will you come up to the house and tell me what you
have decided?"

"I think," he answered her, quietly, "that I have already decided. But
I shall not tell you until to-morrow evening."

CHAPTER IX

That night Conniston sat up late, perched high on the corral fence,
staring at the stars while he tore down and builded up the World.

He had ridden to Rattlesnake Valley with Argyl, and had spent a big
part of the day there with her. He saw scores of men at work with
scrapers, picks, and shovels, and understood little enough of what
they were doing. He rode with her into a town, a brand-new town, of
twenty small, neat houses, as alike as rows of peas. In one of the
houses he worked for Argyl, tacking down carpets in the empty rooms,
moving furniture which he had uncrated in the yard. This was to be her
father's camp, she told him, where he would soon have to spend a part
of each week superintending the work which Bat Truxton was pushing
forward seven days out of the week. Then they had at last ridden home
together, and he had left her at the house, going slowly back to the
corrals with the two horses. And now, his day's work done, he stared
at the stars, rearranging the universe.

He knew that he was William Conniston, the son of William Conniston of
Wall Street. That fact was unchanged, unchangeable. But in some new
way, vaguely different, it was not the all-important fact which it had
been. It was still something to be glad of, something which he was not
going to forget or underestimate. But it was not everything.