follow those already gone, his blind anger and resentment knew no
bounds. He could not, however, understand the real facts in the case,
and no one ever took the trouble fully to explain them to him. So his
impotent rage, lacking a target whereat to aim it, became even blinder.
He was like a child, being unjustly punished for some wrong which he
had not committed, and which he could in no way comprehend. The
thought of facing his chief with a semiannual statement made up of a
series of months like these, was more than he could bear. Fortunately
he was not to be called upon to do so, for Mr. Gunterson left the
Guardian when the fat was all but in the fire, and another turn was
given to affairs.

And the year now just closing had been a busy year for Mr. Richard
Smith. During the most of it he had worked nearly twelve hours a day,
and spent a liberal share of the balance in laying his plans. Now, and
only now,--as the year 1913 was drawing to a close,--had he time to
draw a full breath and look about him.

His Augean stable, if not wholly clean, was at least free from the more
dangerous impurities. The Guardian was not yet, it was true, clear of
all possibility of disaster; but the tide had been turned, and with
strict care there was no further need to fear shipwreck. In
Pennsylvania, in Maryland, in New York,--in short, practically
everywhere save in Massachusetts, where the fight was still in the
courts,--separation had received its deathblow, while robbed of this
advantage the Conference companies could do little or nothing to harm
the Guardian. And in justice to them it must be said that none of them
apparently manifested any abnormal desire to do so, excepting always
the Salamander, whose hostility increased in geometrical ratio with the
Guardian's recovery of strength and prestige. Most of the agencies
which had been lost under Mr. Gunterson's management were either
restored to the company's lists, or else their places had been taken by
others of equal or superior quality.

Out in the field the special agents had under Smith's aggressive
direction recovered their courage and carried out with striking success
the details of his campaign. At the few points where the company's
loss record had been consistently bad, Smith either kept the Guardian
out altogether or made an appointment on such a basis that the agent's
profits would be small unless the company itself made money through
that agency. Being free