al word with the
company's spokesman."

Acting upon this suggestion, Blount opened the Temple Court headquarters
at once and threw himself energetically into the indicated field.
Ackerton, a technical expert with a needle-like mind and the State code
at his fingers'-ends, was left in charge of the working offices in the
railroad building, with instructions to apply to his chief only when he
needed specific advice.

At the up-town headquarters, Blount gave himself wholly to the pleasant
task of making friends. With a good store of introductions upon which to
make a beginning, and with the open-handed, whole-souled _camaraderie_
of the West to help, the list of acquaintances grew with amazing
rapidity. For the three or four weeks after Mrs. Blount had whisked the
Annerses away to Wartrace Hall and the habitat of the Megalosauridae, the
newly appointed "social secretary" for the railroad, as Honoria had
dubbed him, met all comers joyously and accepted all invitations, never
inquiring whether they were extended to his father's son, to the
railroad company's legal chief, or to Evan Blount in his proper person.

During this social interval he saw little of his father, though he was
still occupying his share of the private dining-room suite at the
Inter-Mountain. Part of the time, as he knew, the Honorable Senator was
at Wartrace Hall, looking after his mammoth ranch, and helping to
entertain the visitors from Massachusetts. But now and again the father
came and went; and occasionally there was a dinner _a deux_ in the hotel
_cafe_, with a little good-natured raillery from the senator's side of
the table.

"Got you chasing your feet right lively in the social merry-go-round
these days, haven't they, son? Like it, as far as you've gone?" said the
ex-cattle-king one evening when Evan had come down in evening clothes,
ready to go to madam the governor's wife's strictly formal "informal" a
little later on.

"It's all in the day's work," laughed the younger man. "I shall need all
the 'pull' I can get a little later on, sha'n't I?"

"I shouldn't wonder if you did, son; I shouldn't wonder if you did. And
I reckon you're doing pretty good work, too, mixing and mingling the way
you do. Was it McVickar's idea, or your own--this sudden splash into the
social water-hole?"

"I don't mind telling you that it is a part of the new policy," returned
the social splasher, still smiling. "We are out to make friends this
time; good, solid