a man travels three thousand miles in a
damned stuffy car and then on top of that rides a horse like I did
clean over the backbone of the universe, just through gratitude to his
Noble Ben--"

"Oh, damn the gratitude," cried Shandon. "I'm tired of hearing of it.
I most heartily wish that I'd let matters take their own course."

"Now," resumed Dart, again smilingly, having softly closed the door and
made himself comfortable in a chair, "what's the use of pals getting
off wrong with one another? You slipped up and got your tongue twisted
when you said what's my game. What you'd ought to have said was what
noble purpose is kicking around in my manly boosum. You don't seem to
put any faith in me, Red."

Shandon's short laugh prefixed his short answer.

"Do you wonder I don't?"

Then Mr. Dart chuckled.

"Come right down to it, Red, I don't! But you wrong me. Gratitude, my
Noble--"

"Call me that once more and I'll heave you through the window," snapped
Shandon. "If you've got anything to say, say it. I'm going to bed."

"Don't mind me," Dart hastened to say. "It won't bother me at all.
What I was going to say was this: Here I've come all the way from New
York--"

"No doubt because you were run out!"

"Just through a sense of gratitude. What can I do to show that
gratitude has been the only worry to keep my appetite down to capacity?
I've been here a week, ain't I? Well, the first thing after I got
rested up which has been about four days now, I begun thinking about
that. And it come to me like this: Old Red's got troubles; he needs a
friend that would live in a temperance town just to help him. Here's a
place for Willie Dart to fit in and do some good!"

Shandon groaned.

"If you start in--"

"I've started already," beamed Dart. "I ain't had much time for fine
work, yet, and I don't know the play quite as well as I might, but I've
been planting little seeds of kindness promiscuous."

"What do you mean?" frowned Shandon.

"Now don't go to getting excited. I'm going to tell you, ain't I?
First place, the day I got into these forests primeval, I run across a
fairy that could be Mrs. Willie Dart in a minute if I wasn't sworn to
single harness by my dad on his dying bed down in Argentine."

"Last time he died it was in Nova Scotia," remarked Shandon drily. "Go
ahead."

"As I was saying she was fine and foxy," resumed Dart pleasantly. "We
made up a little lunch and went out for a picnic, just