hat isn't his real name."

"You think he's a sharper then?" Mr. Nelson interjected.

"Yes, sir," responded Allen, his young face earnestly intent. "He looks
to me like one of these confidence men who abound in the western boom
towns--men who can talk the other fellow into putting his last cent into
some 'sure thing.' 'Sure thing,'" he repeated disgustedly. "The only
sure thing about most of those schemes is the certainty of 'going bust'
and losing every penny you have in the world."

"And yet," Mr. Nelson commented, "these sharpers, 'confidence men,' as
you call them, often manage to keep just within the law."

"Oh yes," said Allen, "they manage to keep the letter of the
law--sometimes. But that is just a caution to save their own necks. It's
the spirit of the law that they violate. But we are getting away from
the point," he added, pulling himself up short with an apologetic smile
toward Mrs. Nelson. "We were speaking of this Peter Levine. My summing
up of him is that he is entirely untrustworthy."

Mrs. Nelson shot a triumphant glance at her husband.

"You see?" she said. "I was sure Allen would agree with me."

"Of course I may be mistaken," Allen continued, rather hesitantly. "But
I have a very distinct impression, a sort of seventh sense we fellows in
the law game call it, that this Levine is in league with John Josephs,
the man that offered you fifteen thousand for the ranch."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Nelson, startled. "How can you know that?"

"I don't know it," Allen told her. "I only suspect."

"Then what would you advise us to do?"

"Hold tight and not sell till you have had a chance to look matters over
on the ground--not from a distance."

"Well," said Mr. Nelson rising resignedly and knocking the ashes from
his cigar, "I suppose that settles it. I shall have to leave my business
to go to smash," he added, with a chuckle, "while I take my family into
a barbarous land where every second man you meet has designs on a
well-filled pocketbook----"

But he got no further, for Betty had run over to him and turned him
imperiously around till his smiling eyes looked down into her gleeful
ones.

"Daddy," she cried, "do you really mean it? We can all go to Gold
Run--you and mother and the girls? We'll have to have the girls, you
know!" she ended on a pleading note.

"Oh yes, of course," said Mr. Nelson resignedly. "We will have to have
the girls."

It was a very radiant Betty who, a few minutes later, saw Al