he
was in this condition of mind that he was seen to shake his fist at Mrs.
Fairbrother's passing figure; a menace naturally interpreted as directed
against her, but which, if we know the man, was rather the expression of
his anger against the husband who could rebuke and threaten so beautiful
a creature. Meanwhile, Mr. Fairbrother's preparations went on and, three
weeks before the ball, they started. Mr. Fairbrother had business in
Chicago and business in Denver. It was two weeks and more before he
reached La Junta. Sears counted the days. At La Junta they had a long
conversation; or rather Mr. Fairbrother talked and Sears listened. The
sum of what he said was this: He had made up his mind to have back his
diamond. He was going to New York to get it. He was going alone, and as
he wished no one to know that he had gone or that his plans had been
in any way interrupted, the other was to continue on to El Moro, and,
passing himself off as Fairbrother, hire a room at the hotel and shut
himself up in it for ten days on any plea his ingenuity might suggest.
If at the end of that time Fairbrother should rejoin him, well and good.
They would go on together to Santa Fe. But if for any reason the former
should delay his return, then Sears was to exercise his own judgment as
to the length of time he should retain his borrowed personality; also as
to the advisability of pushing on to the mine and entering on the work
there, as had been planned between them.

Sears knew what all this meant. He understood what was in his master's
mind, as well as if he had been taken into his full confidence, and
openly accepted his part of the business with seeming alacrity, even to
the point of supplying Fairbrother with suitable references as to the
ability of one James Wellgood to fill a waiter's place at fashionable
functions. It was not the first he had given him. Seventeen years before
he had written the same, minus the last phrase. That was when he was
the master and Fairbrother the man. But he did not mean to play the
part laid out for him, for all his apparent acquiescence. He began by
following the other's instructions. He exchanged clothes with him and
other necessaries, and took the train for La Junta at or near the time
that Fairbrother started east. But once at El Moro--once registered
there as Abner Fairbrother from New York--he took a different course
from the one laid out for him,--a course which finally brought him into
his maste