n, Zeb."

The over-confident young money-maker's face brightened, as if the
banker had given him a piece of encouraging news.

"Yes, sir," McElwin went on, "and no cause is lost so long as thinking
is going on. Why, sir, it took my wife years and years to learn how to
think. It was not expected that a young woman in this part of the
country should think. Men were the necessities and women the
adornments of society when I was a young fellow."

"But you said your daughter had become a thinking woman," Sawyer
hastened to remark, to bring him back from his wanderings.

"Yes. And it will require all my strength and influence as a father,
to get her to think as I want her to. Still, in our dealings with a
woman there is always hope--if she thinks. I had quite a talk with her
last night, but I did not convince her that she ought to go to that
fellow and ask him to sign--sign that infamous petition." McElwin took
his arms off the table and leaned back in his chair. "And, sir, I
don't believe she'll do it."

"It can't be that she can care anything for him," said Sawyer.

"Nonsense," the banker replied. "Such a thing has never entered her
head. I think she enjoys the oddity of her position, married and yet
not married. I think it tickles her sense of romance. But there is a
way of getting at everything, and there must be some way of
approaching this outrageous affair. I have looked into the law, and I
find that in case the fellow should go and remain away one year, his
signature would not be necessary. However, being a sort of a lawyer,
he knows this as well as I do. We can't bring the charge of
non-support, for we have not let him try. Zeb, she has intimated that
you are afraid of him."

The banker looked straight at him, but the mule-trader did not change
countenance. "No, I am not afraid of him," he said, "but unless I'm
shoved pretty far, I don't care to mix up with him, I tell you that.
My life is too valuable to throw away, and they tell me that Lyman is
nothing short of a desperado when he is stirred up, though you
wouldn't think it to look at him. But you can never tell a man by
looking at him, not half as much as you can a mule. Oh, if the worst
comes, I'd kill him, but--"

"That would never do," the banker broke in. "Don't think of such a
thing. I wonder if we couldn't buy him off," he added, after a
moment's musing. "I should think that he might be induced to go away.
There is one thing in support of this; he