ght he sucked savagely at his old
pipe, and his eyes were somber.

"You got the straight tip from Miss Sally Ruth, father," he said,
coming out of a brown study. "What do you suppose that piker's trying
to crawl out of his cocoon for? He never wanted to caper around
Appleboro women before, did he? No. And here he's been muldooning to
get some hog-fat off and some wind and waistline back. Now, why? To
please himself? _He_ don't have to care a hoot what he looks like. To
please some girl? That's more likely. Parson: that girl's Mary
Virginia Eustis." He added, through his teeth: "Hunter knows. Hunter's
steering." And then, with quiet conviction: "They're both as crooked
as hell!" he finished.

"But the thing's absurd on the face of it! Why, the mere notion is
preposterous!" I insisted, angrily.

"I have seen worse things happen," said he, shortly. "But there,--keep
your hair on! Things don't happen unless they're slated to happen, so
don't let it bother you too much. You go turn in and forget everything
except that you need a night's sleep."

I tried to follow his sound advice, but although I needed a night's
sleep and there was no tangible reason why I shouldn't have gotten it,
I didn't. The shadow of Inglesby haunted my pillow.

CHAPTER XIII

"EACH IN HIS OWN COIN"

With the New Year had descended upon John Flint an obsessing and
tormenting spirit which made him by fits and starts moody, depressed,
nervous, restless, or wholly silent and abstracted. I have known him
to come in just before dawn, snatch a few hours' sleep, and be off
again before day had well set in, though he must already have been far
afield, for Kerry heeled him with lagging legs and hanging head. Or he
would shut himself up, and refusing himself to all callers, fall into
a cold fury of concentrated effort, sitting at his table hour after
hour, tireless, absorbed, accomplishing a week's overdue work in a day
and a night. Often his light burned all night through. Some of the
most notable papers bearing his name, and research work of
far-reaching significance, came from that workroom then--as if lumps
of ambergris had been tossed out of a whirlpool.

All this time, too, he was working in conjunction with the Washington
Bureau, experimenting with remedies for the boll-weevil, and fighting
the plague of the cattle-tick. This, and the other outside work in
which he was so immensely interested, could not be allowed to hang
fire. Like many