opening and closing it
as if fearful of waking some one asleep in the house.

"Is that you, Sam?" John called out from the parlor.

"Yes, yes, my boy, it is me. I--I thought you might be in bed," and the
contractor now tiptoed into the hall and stood in the parlor doorway.

"Oh no, I thought I'd wait up," John replied. "Like a fool, I didn't
work to-day, and you see I'm not so tired as I usually am. Come in. Got
a match? I'll light the gas. I didn't light it because it is warm
to-night and I was smoking. Did you bring any cigars with you? I've hung
on to my pipe all day and wouldn't mind a change."

"No, I plumb forgot," Cavanaugh answered. "I had to hurry to get my
train. I didn't go about any of the stores, either--too many idle
gossipmongers hanging about. Don't light up for me. I--I-- We can talk
just as well without that. I really ought to be at home. I just thought
I'd stop by and--and--"

He went no farther. John heard him feeling about for a chair and saw his
dim bulk sink into it. There was no doubting the man's agitation, and
why was he agitated? John thought he knew, and bared his mental breast
to the hot iron of revelation.

"You say you didn't go out to the work to-day?" Cavanaugh said,
irrelevantly enough to explain his mien and mood.

"No, I ought to have gone, but I didn't. I was a fool to hang around
here like this, eating my head off and making a smoke-house of my lungs.
It is the first day off I've had for a long time."

This remark was followed by silence. Cavanaugh broke it with a slowly
released sigh. "I may as well tell you what I did," he faltered.

"You can't tell me anything I don't know already," John quickly
interposed. "Remember, Sam, that I told you last night--"

"I know, but I wasn't satisfied to let it rest there. I'm not satisfied
yet to--to let it rest even where it is now. I'm not done with it by a
long shot. I--I'm going back up there in--in a few days. I've got to
look deeper into the law dealing with such extraordinary cases as--"

"The law?" John leaned back in his chair in a swift gesture of contempt.
"What the hell has the law got to do with it, Sam? Law, I say, law! Did
you ever hear of any justice dealt out by the law? Don't talk law to me.
Tell me, man to man, what you did up there."

"What I did? Why, my boy"--Cavanaugh was floundering about in search for
a word, a phrase with which to meet the blunt attack on his
resources--"I did all I could think to do."