of a secretary. "You better go
slow, Hollis," he said. "You are looking about as reliable as your shadow.
Likely the first puff of a wind would lift you out of sight. My, yes. But
I just ran over to say hello, and let you know if it's the expense that's
hurrying you, there's a couple of thousand in the Wenatchee bank I can't
find any use for, now the water-works are done and the house. You can have
it well's not. It ain't drawing any interest." And Tisdale had taken the
little man's hand between both his own and called him "true gold." But he
was in no pressing need of money, though it was possible he might delay in
refunding those sums Banks had advanced on the project. He was able enough
to be on his feet, but these doctors were cautious; it might be another
month before he would be doing a man's work.

He started west, allowing himself ample time to reach Seattle by the
fifteenth of March, when Banks' option expired, but the fourteenth found
him, after three days of delay by floods, snowbound in the Rockies. The
morning of the fifteenth, while the rotaries were still clearing track
ahead, he made his way back a few miles to the nearest telegraph station
and got into communication with the mining man.

"How are you?" came the response from Weatherbee. "Done for? Drop off at
Scenic Hot Springs, if your train comes through. She wrote she was there.
Came up with a little crowd for the coasting. Take care of yourself, and
here is to you.

"Lucky."

And Tisdale, with the genial wrinkles deepening at the corners of his eyes
once more, wired: "Fit as a moose. Go fifteenth. Close business."

A judge may pronounce a sentence yet, at the same time, feel ungovernable
springs of sympathy welling from the depths of his heart, and while
Tisdale pushed his way back to the stalled train, he went over the
situation from Beatriz Weatherbee's side. He knew what the sale of that
desert tract must mean to her; how high her hopes had flown since the
payment of the bonus. Looking forward to that final interview when,
notwithstanding his improvements, Banks should relinquish his option, he
weighed her disappointment. In imagination he saw the light go out of her
eyes; her lip, that short upper lip with its curves of a bow, would quiver
a little, and the delicate nostril; then, instantly, before she had spoken
a word, her indomitable pride would be up like a lifted whip, to sting her
into self-control. Oh, she had the courage; she would b