iting gossip as to any attraction in
Harcourt's daughters. It was late one afternoon as he was passing the
door of Harcourt's study that his host called him in. He found him
sitting at his desk with some papers before him and a folded copy of the
"Clarion." With his back to the fading light of the window his face was
partly in shadow.

"By the way, Grant," he began, with an assumption of carelessness
somewhat inconsistent with the fact that he had just called him in, "it
may be necessary for me to pull up those fellows who are blackguarding
me in the 'Clarion.'"

"Why, they haven't been saying anything new?" asked Grant, laughingly,
as he glanced towards the paper.

"No--that is--only a rehash of what they said before," returned Harcourt
without opening the paper.

"Well," said Grant playfully, "you don't mind their saying that you're
NOT the original pioneer of Tasajara, for it's true; nor that that
fellow 'Lige Curtis disappeared suddenly, for he did, if I remember
rightly. But there's nothing in that to invalidate your rights to
Tasajara, to say nothing of your five years' undisputed possession."

"Of course there's no LEGAL question," said Harcourt almost sharply.
"But as a matter of absurd report, I may want to contradict their
insinuations. And YOU remember all the circumstances, don't you?"

"I should think so! Why, my dear fellow, I've told it everywhere!--here,
in New York, Newport, and in London; by Jove, it's one of my best
stories! How a company sent me out with a surveyor to look up a railroad
and agricultural possibilities in the wilderness; how just as I found
them--and a rather big thing they made, too--I was set afloat by a
flood and a raft, and drifted ashore on your bank, and practically
demonstrated to you what you didn't know and didn't dare to hope
for--that there could be a waterway straight to Sidon from the
embarcadero. I've told what a charming evening we had with you and
your daughters in the old house, and how I returned your hospitality by
giving you a tip about the railroad; and how you slipped out while we
were playing cards, to clinch the bargain for the land with that drunken
fellow, 'Lige Curtis"--

"What's that?" interrupted Harcourt, quickly.

It was well that the shadow hid from Grant the expression of Harcourt's
face, or his reply might have been sharper. As it was, he answered a
little stiffly:--

"I beg your pardon"--

Harcourt recovered himself. "You're all wrong!" h