e in."

Milford stepped into the room, looked at Mills and then at the secretary
who stood near. "I should like to see you alone," he said.

Mills glanced at the secretary. The man vanished.

"Well, sir," said Mills, "what can I do for you? Sit down."

Milford sat down, a table between them.

"I wish to tell you of something that happened about five years ago."

"Well, go ahead. But I'm busy."

"I saw by the newspapers that you had arrived in town--you'll have to
let me get at it in my own way."

Mills glanced at him and moved impatiently. Milford cleared his throat.
He leaned back and then leaned forward with his arms on the table. "Have
just a little patience, please. For years I have worked toward this
moment--have pictured it out a thousand times, but now that I'm up
against it I hardly know how to begin. But let me say at the outset that
I have come to repair a wrong done you."

Mills grunted. "Rather an odd mission," said he. "Men don't read the
newspapers to learn my whereabouts to repay any wrong done me. But does
the wrong concern me?"

"Yes, you and me. Now I'll get at it. I lived in Dakota. I was sometimes
sober, but more often drunk. I gambled. I fought. At one time I was town
marshal of Green Mound. Once I was station agent for you. An evil report
reached the main office, and I was discharged. I was broke. I was mad. I
was put out of a gambling house."

"But what have I got to do with all this?"

"Wait. I met a man, a twin-brother of the devil. He made a suggestion. I
agreed to it. We heard that you and your pay-master were coming across
in a stage. We stopped the stage, and robbed you of twelve hundred and
fifty dollars. That was all you had in currency. We didn't want checks."

"Go ahead," said Mills, without changing countenance.

"I was called Hell-in-the-Mud. My partner was Sam Bradley. We got back
to town, and were seen that night in a gambling house. But we didn't
play--broke, presumably. We were not suspected. Sam died three months
afterwards in Deadwood. We had run through with your money. The town
buried him. I won't pretend to give you any flub-dub about reform, any
of the guff of a mother's dying prayers, for that has been worked too
often. But I got a newspaper from Connecticut with a prayer in it--the
last words of an old woman. That's all right. We'll let that go. But I
resolved to pay you--my part and Sam's too. So I drifted about looking
for something to do, and at last I re