atent of nobility. He knows I had the
cruel misfortune to be born in Colorado. But tell me, Howard, is Mrs.
Dawson a charming young widow?"

"Mrs. Dawson is a very charming middle-aged widow, with a grown son and
a daughter," said Lidgerwood, a little stiffly. It seemed entirely
unnecessary that she should ridicule him before the athlete.

"And the daughter--is she charming, too? But that says itself, since she
must also date 'from Massachusetts.'" Then to Van Lew: "Every one out
here in the Red Desert is 'from' somewhere, you know."

"Miss Dawson is quite beneath your definition of charming, I imagine,"
was Lidgerwood's rather crisp rejoinder; and for the third time he made
as if he would go on to join the president in the office state-room.

"You are staying to luncheon with us, aren't you?" asked Miss Brewster.
"Or do you just drop in and out again, like the other kind of angels?"

"Your father commands me, and he says I am to stay. And now, if you will
excuse me----"

This time he succeeded in getting away, and up to the luncheon hour
talked copper and copper prospects to Mr. Brewster in the seclusion of
the president's office compartment. The call for the midday meal had
been given when Mr. Brewster switched suddenly from copper to silver.

"By the way, there were a few silver strikes over in the Timanyonis
about the time of the Red Butte gold excitement," he remarked. "Some of
them have grown to be shippers, haven't they?"

"Only two, of any importance," replied the superintendent: "the Ruby, in
Ruby Gulch, and Flemister's Wire-Silver, at Little Butte. You couldn't
call either of them a bonanza, but they are both shipping fair ore in
good quantities."

"Flemister," said the president reflectively. "He's a character. Know
him personally, Howard?"

"A little," the superintendent admitted.

"A little is a-plenty. It wouldn't pay you to know him very well,"
laughed the big man good-naturedly. "He has a somewhat paralyzing way
of getting next to you financially. I knew him in the old Leadville
days; a born gentleman, and also a born buccaneer. If the men he has
held up and robbed were to stand in a row, they'd fill a Denver street."

"He is in his proper longitude out here, then," said Lidgerwood rather
grimly. "This is the 'hold-up's heaven.'"

"I'll bet Flemister is doing his share of the looting," laughed the
president. "Is he alone in the mine?"

"I don't know that he has any partners. Somebody told