ervices commensurate with the annual
sums paid him? The witness thought that he had, in fact, received just
about what those services were worth. Would Mr. Valiant be good enough
to state the figures of the salary he had been privileged to draw as a
vice-president?

The answer fell as slowly in the sardonic silence. "I have never drawn a
salary as an officer of the Valiant Corporation."

Then it was that the irritated examiner had abruptly dismissed the
witness. Then the ripple had swept over the assemblage, and Katharine
Fargo, gazing, had smiled that slow smile in which approval struggled
with mingled wonder and question.

* * * * *

The jostling crowd flocked out into the square, among them a fresh-faced
girl on the arm of a gray-bearded man in black frock coat and
picturesque broad-brimmed felt hat. She turned her eyes to his.

"So that," she said, "is John Valiant! I'd almost rather have missed
Niagara Falls. I must write Shirley Dandridge about it. I'm so sorry I
lost that picture of him that I cut out of the paper."

"I reckon he's not such a bad lot," said her uncle. "I liked the way he
spoke of his father."

He hailed a cab. "Grand Central Station," he directed, with a glance at
his watch, "and be quick about it. We've just time to make our train."

"Yessir! Dollar'n a half, sir."

The gentleman seated the girl and climbed in himself. "I know the legal
fare," he said, "if I am from Virginia. And if you try to beat me out of
more, you'll be sorry."

* * * * *

Some hours later, in an inner office of a down-town sky-scraper, the
newly-appointed receiver of the Valiant Corporation, a heavy, thick-set
man with narrow eyes, sat beside a table on which lay a small black
satchel with a padlock on its handle, whose contents--several bundles
of crisp papers--he had been turning over in his heavy hands with a look
of incredulous amazement. A sheet containing a mass of figures and
memoranda lay among them.

The shock was still on his face when a knock came at the door, and a man
entered. The newcomer was gray-haired, slightly stooped and lean-jowled,
with a humorous expression on his lips. He glanced in surprise at the
littered table.

"Fargo," said the man at the desk, "do you notice anything queer about
me?"

His friend grinned. "No, Buck," he said judicially, "unless it's that
necktie. It would stop a Dutch clock."

"Hang the haberdashery