eks were flushed, rose with a formal bow, though her
eyes shone suspiciously, but Flora Schuyler stepped forward and held out
her hand.

"Mr. Torrance can't object to two women thanking you for what you have
done; and if he does, I don't greatly mind," she said.

Torrance only smiled, but the warm bronze seemed to have returned to
Larry's face as he passed on. Flora Schuyler had thanked him, but he had
seen what was worth far more to him in Hetty's eyes, and knew that it was
only loyalty to one who had the stronger claim that held her still. After
the door closed behind him there was once more a curious stillness in the
hall until Torrance went out with his retainers. A little later Clavering
found the girls in another room.

"You seem quite impressed, Miss Schuyler," he said.

"I am," said Flora Schuyler. "I have seen a man who commands one's
approbation--and an American."

Clavering laughed. "Then, they're not always quite the same thing?"

"No," Flora Schuyler said coldly. "That was one of the pleasant fancies I
had to give up a long time ago."

"I would like a definition of the perfected American," said Clavering.

Miss Schuyler yawned. "Can't you tell him, Hetty? I once heard you talk
quite eloquently on that subject."

"I'll try," said Hetty. "It's the man who wants to give his country
something, and not get the most he can out of it. The one who goes round
planting seeds that will grow and bear fruit, even if it is long after he
is there to eat it. No country has much use for the man who only wants to
reap."

Clavering assented, but there was a sardonic gleam in his eyes. "Well," he
said reflectively, "there was once a man who planted dragon's teeth, and
you know what kind of crop they yielded him."

"He knew what he was doing," said Flora Schuyler. "The trouble is that now
few men know a dragon's tooth when they see it."

Clavering laughed. "Then the ones who don't should be stopped right off
when they go round planting anything."

XV

HETTY'S BOUNTY

It was a clear, cold afternoon, and Hetty, driving back from Allonby's
ranch, sent the team at a gallop down the dip to the Cedar Bridge. The
beaten trail rang beneath the steel shoes of the rocking sleigh, the
birches streamed up blurred together out of the hollow, and Flora Schuyler
felt the wind sting her cheeks like the lash of a whip. The coldness of it
dimmed her eyes, and she had only a hazy and somewhat disconcerting vision
of a s