uccession of surprises to her. When she opened the door to
retrospection, which was not often, she remembered that the man who had
stumbled upon the rich quartz vein in Yellow Dog Gulch could scarcely
sign his name legibly to the papers recording his claim; that in those
days there was no prophecy of the ambitious present in the man, half
drunkard and half outlaw, whose name in the Yellow Dog district had been
a synonym for--but these were unpleasant memories, and Margery rarely
indulged them.

Just now she put them aside by turning her back upon the window and
taking credit for the tasteful and luxurious appointments of the private
office, with its soft-piled rug and heavy mahogany furnishings. Her
father was careless of such things; totally indifferent to them in
business hours; but she saw to it that his surroundings kept pace with
the march of prosperity. Here in Wahaska, as elsewhere, a little
judicious display counted for much, even if there were a few bigoted
persons who affected to despise it.

She was in the midst of a meditated attack upon the steamship
lithographs on the walls--sole remaining landmarks of the ante-Grierson
period--when her father wheeled in his pivot-chair and questioned her
with a lift of his shaggy eyebrows.

"Want to see me, Madgie?"

"Just a moment." She crossed the room and stood at the end of the big
desk. He reached mechanically for his check-book, but she smiled and
stopped him. "No; it isn't money, this time: it's something that money
can't buy. I met Mr. Edward Raymer at the front door a few minutes ago;
does he have an account with you?"

"Yes."

"Is it an accommodation to the bank, or to him?"

Jasper Grierson's laugh was grimly contemptuous.

"The bank isn't making anything out of him. The shoe is on the other
foot."

"Do you mean that he is a borrower?"

"Not yet; but he wants to be. He was in to see me about it just now."

"What is the matter? Isn't he making money with his plant?"

"Oh, yes; his business is good enough. But he's like all the other young
fools, nowadays; he ain't content to bet on a sure thing and grow with
his capital. He wants to widen out and build and put in new machinery
and cut a bigger dash generally. Thinks he's been too slow and sure."

"Are you going to stake him?" Margery waged relentless war with her
birthright inclination to lapse into the speech of the mining-camps, but
she stumbled now and then in talking to her father.

"I don'