of course, and he tried like
blazes to shake me off, but I was foxy and beat him at his own game
yesterday. He drove up to a certain house and she came out herself, as
if she'd been waiting for him. I jotted down the address, and beat it
as hard as I could. It's lucky I found her when I did, because the car
was moved to another garage this morning and I lost its trail."

"What are you going to do?" inquired the other. "Call on her to extend
your sympathy? That's about the last thing on earth that Gentleman
Geoff's Billie wants, under any circumstances."

He uttered the name with an unconscious note of tenderness in his voice
which would have been illuminating to Winnie North, but that young man
was busied at the moment with embarrassing thoughts of his own. His
face at the other's abrupt question had turned a bright pink, but he
replied steadily:

"I don't want to intrude upon her, but I'd like to tell her that I'm
standing by in case of need.--I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll drop her
a line and ask her if I may bring you up to call, shall I? She can
tell you all about this thing better than I----"

Thode shook his head decisively.

"No. I am an old friend, as you say, and if she should want to see me
she knows how to reach me. I'm going away in a few days, at any rate."

"Away?" Winnie said impulsively. "Why, old man, you're not returning
to Mexico, are you? I thought you were going to stay around town for a
month or two."

"No!" There was a determined ring, not without a touch of grimness, in
his tones. "I'm going to take Horace Greeley's advice once more:
'Young man, go West.' I'll hit the trail for the setting sun----"

"And find your pot of gold, like the old fairy tale of the rainbow's
end? By Jove, but you fellows are dreamers!" Winnie laughed, then
touched his friend's shoulder persuasively. "Why don't you stay on
here where the money is and work this end of the game for a change?
You engineer chaps get out and do all the hard work, and the smug
brokers who sit tight in their offices down on the Street reap all the
profits. Get in on the ground floor, old man, and let the other fellow
do the prospecting."

Thode laughed also.

"Without a working capital? Besides, I know nothing and care less
about the manipulations of the financial end of it; the prospecting is
all I'm cut out for and it's more fascinating than the market game
could possibly be! However, I'm not going West for t