u down!"

Surely now this must be a dream! "Red," too, was in a daze, suffering
vicariously for his adored one.

"Oh!" cried Angela, when a full realization of what Uncle Henry meant came
over her.

Uncle Henry went on: "Like your own payrent--the stony-hearted old
reptile!"

"Oh, Gil--" began Angela in tears.

"Go on--you ask 'em!" suggested Uncle Henry.

"Gil--" the girl got out the first syllable of his name, and no more; for
her little handkerchief was at her pretty nose.

"I'm sorry," said Gilbert, gallantly, going to her. "Please don't feel
badly about it."

"Don't--don't speak to me!" Angela sniffed, and stamped her dainty foot.
"Don't look at me! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you all!" Blinded with
rage and tears, she crossed the room, and stumbled directly into Uncle
Henry's chair, and all but tipped him over. "Red" followed her,
solicitously.

"Now, Angela--" he said, and tried to grasp her arm. "Remember, I'm here!"

But all the thanks he got was a wild, "Get out of my way!" and he found
himself pushed aside, into a corner. Another of her unsuspected tantrums!

"My God!" ejaculated Uncle Henry, furious at Angela's accident, which so
directly concerned himself, "but everybody's unreasonable to-day!" He
turned harshly on his nephew. "You make me sick, you! Here am I doing my
gol darndest to save the mess you've made, and you won't even--" He broke
off, unable, in his wrath, to continue. His eye lit on Hardy. "Look here,"
he cried, in desperation, "ain't there no way out of this thing? It was my
money that bought this ranch, you know. And everybody knows it! The last
ten thousand dollars I had in the world!" There was a sob in his voice on
the last words.

Hardy looked at him, but with no pity in his gaze. "That's your lookout,
Smith. Everybody for himself--that's my motto."

"And you'd throw me, old and sick, a invalid, out into the streets?" Uncle
Henry whined. No one could get more pathos into his tones than Uncle Henry
when he wanted to do so.

"No; I'd let you wheel yourself out," Jasper Hardy, again the
literal-minded Hardy, said. It was one of the meanest remarks that even he
had ever made.

"Say, ain't you got no heart at all?" Uncle Henry wanted to know.

"I used to have; but it cost me too much money," was Hardy's explanation
and vindication. "Sentiment? Bosh!" And he made a gesture of deep disgust.

Uncle Henry wanted to put a curse on him! "Well, all I hope is that some
day you