l business foresight, I sold it to Mr. McDermott myself for eleven
hundred dollars. He said he was going to raise eagles on it," he
explained, with a laugh.

The flowers, the lights, and the music of the night he had dined at the
lodge came back to him. He recalled a touch on his arm, an upturned face
with wistful gray eyes, and remembered Katrine's warning. As he did so a
great anger came to him at the way he had been used, and his newly
awakened manhood called to him for action. There should be another side
to the matter, he determined. McDermott's overheard misprisement of the
South! His statement of his intentions toward Katrine! The cut of the
words, "_She is but eighteen, and one protects that age_," came back to
him. There had never come a time in his life before when he would have
been in the mood to do the thing he now offered.

"Phil," he said, "there is another bank to the Silver Fork River."

"But it is in your own plantation, and we knew the hopelessness of any
proposition to you, Southerner that you are!"

"It would be at least nine miles from Ravenel House," Frank answered,
determinedly. "I find I have changed a great deal in my views of things
lately," and here he leaned forward on the table toward his friend. "De
Peyster," he said, "let us build the railroad together!"

XIV

DERMOTT DISCOVERS A NEW SIDE TO FRANK'S CHARACTER

The next morning news came to McDermott that his land on the Silver Fork
was no longer desired by the newly formed company. It was nearly a
fortnight, however, before he learned the railroad was to be built on
the Ravenel side of the river.

The information came with abruptness from John Marix, a gaminlike
broker, who encountered McDermott in the elevator to their mutual
offices.

"Say, McDermott," he cried, with a cheerful laugh, "Ravenel didn't do a
thing to you, did he? _He didn't do a thing to you!_" he repeated, with
a lively chuckle.

McDermott's eyes were bland on the instant. He did not understand the
little man's meaning. What he did understand, always understood,
however, was that he must never be taken off guard in the game of life.

"I am the football of the Street," he said, with a kind of cheerful
despondency. "Everybody does me!"

"Yes they do!" the other responded, derisively. "It's because you've
done everybody that we're glad somebody's got even for a minute!
But"--dropping the bantering tone--"this Ravenel is something of a
wonder. I was at