eature's price, but intended to get it from
Bostwick. Indeed, to-day he had the money, but was far too much
engrossed with Lawrence to give the lumberman a thought.

Trimmer, waxing greedy through the ease with which he had blackmailed
McCoppet, had developed a cunning of his own. Convinced that the
gambler was accustomed to incubating plans in his private office, the
lumberman made shift to excavate a hole beneath the floor of that
particular den of privacy, and, after having spent half a night in
vain, in this place of concealment, was at last being duly rewarded as
he listened to McCoppet and Lawrence.

With his ear to a knot-hole he gathered in everything essential to a
knowledge of the plot. He became aware that Lawrence "fell" for twenty
thousand dollars; he overheard the details of the "survey" about to be
made; but to save his very life he could not have fathomed the means
that were about to be employed to "jump" the mining property belonging
to Van Buren and his partners.

Equipped with this latest means of squeezing McCoppet, the creature
emerged from his hole in time to meet the gambler at the bar, during a
moment of Bostwick's temporary absence.

"Opal," he said significantly, "I need to see you fer a minute. It
won't be no healthier to refuse me now than it was the first time I
come."

The gambler looked at him coldly. "I haven't got time to talk now,
Larry, but some of your money is at your order any time you want it, in
gold, or poker chips, or gin."

Trimmer was placated. "All right," he said, and cunningly resolved,
upon the spot, to keep his latest secret on the ice.

Lawrence had already disappeared to hasten arrangements for getting out
upon his work.

Bostwick had waited half an hour in the utmost impatience. With a
hundred things to increase his restlessness of mind and body, he had
finally gone to the postoffice and there discovered a letter from
Glenmore Kent.

It was short, and now no longer fresh. It had been composed just after
the young man's accident, and after relating how he had received a not
inconsiderable injury, requested Searle to come to Starlight at once,
if possible, and not to divulge any needless facts to Beth.

"I'm broke, and this knock puts me down and out," the letter concluded.
"Come down, like a good old chap, and cheer me up."

Bostwick destroyed the letter promptly, lest it fall by some accident
into other hands than his own. Not without a slight fe