that is my kid
brother and myself--have engineered a deal or two in lumber lands,
however. It was only last month that I turned a good trade--a very
good trade--on a tract of the finest trees in Wisconsin."

"The dickens!" exclaimed the older gentleman explosively. "So you're
the Turner who sold us our own lumber! Now I know you. I'm Stevens,
of the Maine and Wisconsin Lumber Company."

Sam Turner laughed aloud, in both surprise and glee. Mr. Stevens had
now reached for his own card-case. The two gentlemen exchanged cards,
which, with barely more than a glance, they poked in the other flaps of
their cases; then they took a new and more interested inspection of
each other. Both were now entirely oblivious to the girl, who,
however, was by no means oblivious to them. She found them, in this
new meeting, a most interesting study.

"You gouged us on that land, young man," resumed Mr. Stevens with a wry
little smile.

"Worth every cent you paid us for it, wasn't it?" demanded the other.

"Y-e-s; but if you hadn't stepped into the deal at the last minute, we
could have secured it for five or six thousand dollars less money."

"You used to go after these things yourself," explained Mr. Turner with
an easy laugh. "Now you send out people empowered only to look and not
to purchase."

"But what I don't yet understand," protested Mr. Stevens, "is how you
came to be in the deal at all. When we sent out our men to inspect the
trees they belonged to a chap in Detroit. When we came to buy them
they belonged to you."

"Certainly," agreed the younger man. "I was up that way on other
business, when I heard about your man looking over this valuable
acreage; so I just slipped down to Detroit and hunted up the owner and
bought it. Then I sold it to you. That's all."

He smiled frankly and cheerfully upon Mr. Stevens, and the frown of
discomfiture which had slightly clouded the latter gentleman's brow,
faded away under the guilelessness of it all; so much so that he
thought to introduce his daughter.

Miss Josephine having been brought into the conversation, Mr. Turner,
for the first time, bent his gaze fully upon her, giving her the same
swift scrutiny and appraisement that he had the father. He was
evidently highly satisfied with what he saw, for he kept looking at it
as much as he dared. He became aware after a moment or so that Mr.
Stevens was saying something to him. He never did get all of it, but
he got t