he shuddered, in mock dismay. "That sounds almost vindictive.
Are you vindictive, Mr. Ford?"

"Terribly," he laughed. "The black-hearted villain of melodrama isn't a
patch on me when I'm stirred." And then, more seriously: "But it isn't
altogether a joke. There is another side to the thing--what you might
call the ethical, I suppose. There are a score or so of men in the
company's service--Frisbie and his subordinates--whose jobs hang upon
mine. A worse man than I ever aspired to be might be loyal to his
friends."

"I wouldn't think of questioning your loyalty to your friends," she
admitted.

"Also," he went on determinately, "there is the larger question of right
and wrong involved. Is it right for me to step aside and let an
organized system of graft and thievery go on unchecked? I know it
exists; I have evidence enough to go before a grand jury. I'm not posing
as a saint, or even as a muck-raker; but isn't something due to the
people who are paying the bills?"

"Now you are involving Uncle Sidney again; and I can't listen to that."

"He is innocent; as innocent as some hundreds of other narrow-minded,
short-sighted old men whom chance, or the duplicity of the real rascals,
puts at the head of corporations."

"Yet you would make him suffer with the guilty."

"Not willingly, you may be sure. Not at all, if he would listen to
reason. But he won't. He'll stand by North till the last gun is fired;
and while North stays, there'll be graft, big or little, as the
opportunities warrant."

Alicia held her peace while the caravan was measuring another half-mile
of the boulder-strewn road. Then she said: "I feel so wretchedly
inadequate to help you, Mr. Ford. I wish you could wait until you have
talked it over with brother."

"So do I. But I am afraid postponement doesn't lie with me, now. From
your uncle's manner and from what he said to me yesterday, I can't help
feeling that the crisis is right here. For two days Mr. Colbrith has
been very plainly leading up to some sort of dramatic climax. I can't
remotely guess what it is going to be; though I can guess that the plot
isn't his."

Again she took time to consider, and when she spoke they were nearing
the scene of strenuous activities at the moving track-end.

"You don't think you could postpone it?" she asked, almost wistfully, he
thought. "I think--I hope--my brother will become interested again. It
is your fault that he lost interest, Mr. Ford."

"My fault?"