hat I can say. "They looked
as big as--as suspended tubs."

"Buck-fever," explains Sandford, laconically.

"That's all right." I feel my fighting-blood rising, and I swear with
a mighty wordless oath that I'll be avenged for that laugh. "The day
is young yet. If, before night, I don't wipe both your eyes, and wipe
them good--"

"I know you will, old man." Sandford is smiling understandingly, and
in a flash I return the smile with equal understanding. "And when you
do, laugh at me, laugh long and loud."

CHAPTER XI--THE COLD GRAY DAWN

At a quarter of twelve o'clock a week later, I slip out of my office
sheepishly, and, walking a half-block, take the elevator to the fifth
floor of the Exchange Building, on the corner. The white enamel of
Sandford's tiny box of an office glistens, as I enter the door, and
the tiling looks fresh and clean, as though scrubbed an hour before.

"Doctor's back in the laboratory," smiles the white-uniformed
attendant, as she grasps my identity.

On a tall stool, beside the laboratory lathe, sits Sandford, hard at
work. He acknowledges my presence with a nod--and that is all.

"Noon, Sandford," I announce.

"Is it?" laconically.

"Thought I'd drop over to the club for lunch, and a little smoke
afterward. Want to go along?"

"Can't." The whirr of the electric lathe never ceases. "Got to finish
this bridge before one o'clock. Sorry, old man."

"Harry just 'phoned and asked me to come and bring you." I throw the
bait with studied nicety. "He's getting up a party to go out to
Johnson's, and wants to talk things over a bit in advance."

"Harry!" Irony fairly drips from the voice. "He's always going
somewhere. Mustn't have much else to do. Anyway, can't possibly meet
him this noon."

"To-night, then." I suggest tentatively. "He can wait until then, I'm
sure."

"Got to work to-night, too. Things are all piled up on me." Sandford
applies a fresh layer of pumice to the swiftly moving polishing wheel,
with practised accuracy. "Tell Harry I'm sorry; but business is
business, you know."

"_Purr-r-r!_" drones on the lathe, "_purr-r-r!_" I hear it as I
silently slip away.

Yes, Sandford is sane; and will be for fifty-one weeks.

A FRONTIER ROMANCE: A TALE OF JUMEL MANSION

I

A new settlement in a new country: no contemporary mind can conceive
the possibilities of future greatness that lie in the fulfilment of
its prophecy.

A long, irregular quadrangle has been hew