"Only promise to keep your eyes in the boat. Don't help a poor dog of a
man into love with you. And don't help yourself into love with him. When
the right man comes along, he will _make_ you love him, and then you
will be sure."

"I will promise," said Barbara simply, "and I never knew how rotten I
was. And I'm glad you've told me. If it's any comfort to you--you've
helped. And nobody ever helped before. I shall always be proud to
remember that you loved me. And I'll keep my eyes in the boat."

"And that," said Mr. West, "is where I'll keep mine, only, if it's
nothing to you, I'll remember sometimes how the moon looked that time I
looked up."

She stood uncertain.

"It's kind of awkward," he said, "sometimes to make a clean break. Good
luck to you. And don't feel sorry about me. And be true to yourself. And
if you ever really need me for anything tell Bubbles. He knows where to
find me, when anybody does."

A few minutes later Barbara was asking Bubbles if he happened to know
Mr. Harry West's address.

"He won't be coming back here," she said, "and I want to send him a
book."

"I'll deliver it," said Bubbles. "He don't keep no regular address. You
have to catch him on the run."

"Very well," she said, "take him this, with my very best thanks and my
very best wishes."

And she gave Bubbles a charmingly bound copy of Rostand's "Far-Away
Princess," and when Bubbles had trotted off, she dropped into her chair
and cried because she thought she had broken poor West's heart. But
there was stern stuff in his heart, and exultation, for he knew that in
the supreme test of his life, he had thought only of--her.

XIX

"There, everything is understood," said Blizzard; "we are agreed upon
the 15th of next January. And you can bring enough men on from the West
to do the work?"

O'Hagan, thick-set, black, bristling, nodded across the table. "You have
guaranteed the money and the hats," he said; "I will guarantee the men.
What's behind that door?"

"Nothing but a junk-closet," said Blizzard. "Drink something."

O'Hagan poured three fingers of dark whiskey into a short glass and
drank it at one gulp. "After that one," he said, "the wagon until
the 15th."

"Yes," said Blizzard with some grimness. "There must be no frolicking.
And mind this, Jimmie: the more good American citizens who don't speak
English that you can corral the better. We don't want intelligence. We
want blind obedience with a hope of gain. An