things of that sort. I have sometimes been commissioned to
make geological surveys for Eastern capitalists. Lately I've been
canal-digging on the Isthmus; but the other day I got a notification
from some men in Boston and New York to come out here on a secret
mission."

"Secret, Mr. Freeman?"

"Yes: you will understand directly. These men had heard enough about
the desert valleys of this region to lead them to think that it might be
reclaimed and so be made very valuable. Such lands can be bought now for
next to nothing; but, if the theories that control these capitalists
are correct, they could afterwards be sold at a profit of thousands
per cent. So it's indispensable that the object of my being here should
remain unknown; otherwise, other persons might step in and anticipate
the designs of this company."

"If those are your orders, why do you speak to me?"

"There's a reason for doing it that outweighs the reasons against it. I
trust you with the secret: yet I don't mean to bind you to secrecy. You
will have a perfect right to tell it: the only result would be that I
should be discredited with my employers; and there is nothing to warrant
me in supposing that you would be deterred by that."

"I don't ask to know your secret: I think you had better say no more."

Freeman shook his head. "I must speak," said he. "I don't care what
becomes of me, so long as I stand right in your opinion,--your
father's and yours. I am here to find out whether this desert can be
flooded,--irrigated,--whether it's possible, by any means, to bring
water upon it. If my report is favorable, the company will purchase
hundreds, or thousands, of square miles, and, incidentally, my own
fortune will be made."

"Why, that's the very thing----" She stopped.

"The very thing your father had thought of! Yes, so I imagined, though
he has not told me so in so many words. So I'm in the position of
surreptitiously taking away the prospective fortune of a man whom I
respect and honor, and who treats me as a friend."

Miriam walked on some steps in silence. "It is no fault of yours," she
said at last. "You owe us nothing. You must carry out your orders."

"Yes; but what is to prevent your father from thinking that I stole his
idea and then used it against him?"

"You can tell him the truth: he could not complain; and why should
you care if he did? I know that men separate business from--from other
things."

They had now come to the little en