arned.

"Of course not. Any reasonable man would expect to spend something by
way of insurance for the future. But the point is, the operations must
pay. Think it over!"

They emerged into the mill clearing. Welton rolled out to greet them,
his honest red face aglow with pleasure over greeting again his old
friend. They pounded each other on the back, and uttered much facetious
and affectionate abuse. Bob left them cursing each other heartily, broad
grins illuminating their weatherbeaten faces.

XL

Bob's obvious course was to talk the whole matter over with his superior
officer, and that is exactly what he intended to do. Instead, he hunted
up Amy. He justified this course by the rather sophistical reflection
that in her he would encounter the most positive force to the contrary
of the proposition he had just received. Amy stood first, last and all
the time for the Service; her heart was wholly in its cause. In her
opinion he would gain the advantage of a direct antithesis to the ideas
propounded by his father. This appeared to Bob an eminently just
arrangement, but failed to account for a certain rather breathless
excitement as he caught sight of Amy's sleek head bending over a pan of
peas.

"Amy," said he, dropping down at her feet, "I want your advice."

She let fall her hands and looked at him with the refreshing directness
peculiarly her own.

"Father wants me to take charge of the Wolverine Company's operations,"
he began.

"Well?" she urged him after a pause.

"What do you think of it?"

"I thought you had worked that all out for yourself some time ago."

"I had. But father and Mr. Welton are getting a little too old to handle
such a proposition, and they are looking to me--" he paused.

"That situation is no different than it has been," she suggested. "What
else?"

Bob laughed.

"You see through me very easily, don't you? Well, the situation is
changed. I'm being bribed."

"Bribed!" Amy cried, throwing her head back.

"Extra inducements offered. They make it hard for me to refuse, without
seeming positively brutal. They offer me complete charge--to do as I
want. I can run the works absolutely according to my own ideas. Don't
you see how I am going to hurt them when I refuse under such
circumstances?"

"Refuse!" cried Amy. "Refuse! What do you mean!"

"Do you think I ought to leave the Service?" stammered Bob blankly.

"Why, it's the best chance the Service has ever had!" said A