ug of disgust finished the sentence.

Colonel Wallifarro studied his cigar ash without rejoinder, and when
Larry Masters failed to draw a return fire of argument, he sat for a
minute or two glumly silent. Then, as his thoughts coursed back into
other years, a slow light kindled in his eyes, as if for a dead dream.

"You were always sceptical about Middlesboro, even when others were full
of faith--but why?" he demanded. "To you, with your Bluegrass ideas of
fat acres, these hills must always be the ragged fringes of things, a
meagre land without a future. It was only that you lacked imagination."

The speaker swept torrentially on with as much of argumentative warmth
as though he had not just confessed himself ruined by reason of his own
former confidence.

"Where the Gap came through lay the natural gateway of the hills,
hewn out in readiness by the hand of the Almighty. There was
water-power--ore. There was coal, for smelter and market, timber
awaiting the axe and the saw-mill--the whole tremendous treasure house
of a natural Eldorado."

"Perhaps," observed the Colonel, "and yet, when all is said and done, it
was only a boom--and it collapsed. Whatever the causes, the results are
definite."

"Yes, it collapsed, and we went with it." Masters paused to take up and
empty the glass which had started the discussion, then with a heightened
excitement he swept on afresh:

"Yet how near we came! Gad, man, your own eyes saw our conception grow!
You saw lots along what had been creek-bed trails sell at a
footage-price that rivalled New York's best avenues, and you yourself
recognized in me, for all your scepticism, a man with a golden future.
Then--after all that--you saw me jolly well ruined--and yet you prate of
what life may hold for me in the vigour of my middle-age."

"All that happened ten years back, however," the elder man equably
reminded his companion. "It was the old story of a boom and a
collapse--and one misfortune--even one disaster--need not break a man's
spirit. You might have come back."

The eyes of the portly gentleman rested in a momentary glance on the
bottle and glass, but that may have been chance. At least he did not
mention them.

"You think I might have come back, do you?" The voice of the Englishman
had hardened. "I don't want to be nasty or say disagreeable things.
You've been a staunch friend to me--even when Anne found herself growing
bitter against me. Well, I don't blame her. Her peopl