id little waif had sense enough to conceal a button to her
own profit.

"Munn," said Sprowl, lighting a cigar, "what is there in this business?"

"I'll tell you when I'm done," observed Munn, coolly.

Sprowl sat down on the bed where O'Hara had died, cocked the cigar up in
his mouth, and blew smoke, musingly, at the ceiling.

Munn found nothing--not a scrap of paper, not a line. This staggered
him, but he did not intend that Sprowl should know it.

"Found what you want?" asked Sprowl, comfortably.

"Yes," replied Munn.

"Belong to the kid?"

"Yes; I'm her guardian."

The men measured each other in silence for a minute.

"What will you take to keep quiet?" asked Sprowl. "I'll give you a
thousand dollars."

"I want five thousand," said Munn, firmly.

"I'll double it for the papers," said Sprowl.

Munn waited. "There's not a paper left," he said; "O'Hara made me burn
'em."

"Twenty thousand for the papers," said Sprowl, calmly.

"My God, Mr. Sprowl!" growled Munn, white and sweating with anguish.
"I'd give them to you for half that if I had them. Can't you believe me?
I saw O'Hara burn them."

"What were you rummaging for, then?" demanded Sprowl.

"For anything--to get a hold on you," said Munn, sullenly.

"Blackmail?"

Munn was silent.

"Oh," said Sprowl, lazily. "I think I'll be going, then--"

Munn barred his exit, choking with anger.

"You give me five thousand dollars, or I'll stir 'em up to look into
your titles!" he snarled.

Sprowl regarded him with contempt; then another idea struck him, an idea
that turned his fat face first to ashes, then to fire.

A month later Sprowl returned to the Sagamore Club, triumphant,
good-humored, and exceedingly contented. But he had, he explained, only
succeeded in saving the club at the cost of the entire emergency
fund--one hundred thousand dollars--which, after all, was a drop in the
bucket to the remaining fourteen members.

The victory would have been complete if Sprowl had also been able to
purchase the square mile of land lately occupied by O'Hara. But this
belonged to O'Hara's daughter, and the child flatly refused to part with
it.

"You'll have to wait for the little slut to change her mind," observed
Munn to Sprowl. And, as there was nothing else to do, Sprowl and the
club waited.

Trouble appeared to be over for the Sagamore Club. Munn disappeared; the
daughter was not to be found; the long-coveted land remained tenantless.

Of course