one
business man to another."

"But I have heard--they say he's all kinds of a crank."

"Never mind what you have heard. Tell him all the facts and ask him to
help you, and for mercy's sake don't offer him a block of your stock.
Put it where it will do the most good. Put it in the name of Professor
William J. Anners, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and show Mr. Blount how
dreadfully disastrous the loss of the preferential freight rate would be
to all the poor people in your list of stock-holders--including
Professor Anners."

Hathaway drew down his cuff and made a pencil memorandum of the name and
address of the new beneficiary.

"You'll notice that I'm not asking any foolish questions about who this
Professor Anners is, or why I should be making him a present of a block
of stock. If I don't, it's because what you say goes as it lies.
Anything else?"

"Yes; don't fail to be perfectly frank with Mr. Blount, and don't let
him put you off. He may pretend to be very angry at first, but you won't
mind that."

"I won't mind anything if I can bring this business down to the
every-day commonplace earth once more. You and the senator and Gantry
and McVickar are playing some sort of a game, and you ain't showing me
anything more than the back of the cards. That's all right. I guess I'm
fly enough to play my hand blindfolded, if I've got to. I don't care,
just so I win the odd trick."

Gantry was coming down the avenue of banana-trees with the ice he had
taken so much time to procure, and the lumber magnate rose reluctantly.
There was time for only one more question, and he put it hastily.

"When and where can I find Evan Blount?" he asked.

"The day after to-morrow, at his office in Temple Court. He is out of
the city now, but--" Here Gantry's coming put an end to the private
conference, and the president of the Twin Buttes company went his way.

Not until they had served out their full sentence at Mrs. Weatherford's
crush, and were back in the private dining-room suite at the
Inter-Mountain, with Miss Anners safely behind the closed door of her
own apartment, did the small conspirator pass the word of good hope on
to her husband.

"It is working beautifully," she exulted. "He will go to see Evan day
after to-morrow--and after that, the deluge."

XI

THE GREAT GAME

If Evan Blount, as the representative of the unpopular railroad, had
been anticipating an unfriendly reception at the great gold-camp in the