ome one of them has blabbed and this Northrup is
the result. Why, man, I've got inventions over at the mines that will
revolutionize this rotten, lazy Forest. I wanted to win the folks--but
they wouldn't be won. I wanted to save them in spite of themselves,
but damn 'em, they won't be saved. In a year I could make Heathcote a
rich man, if he'd wake up and _keep_ an inn instead of a kennel. But
I've got to have this Point. I want to build a bridge from here to the
railroad property on the other shore--this is the narrowest part of
the lake; I want to build cottages here, instead of--of rat holes.
I've got to get this Point by hook or crook--and I can't shilly-shally
with this Northrup on to the game."

Suddenly, while he was talking, Maclin's eyes fell upon the untidy
mass of papers on the table. He pulled his fat hands out of his tight
pockets and let them fall like paperweights on the envelopes and
sheets.

"What are these?" he asked.

Larry started guiltily.

"Old letters," he said.

"What you doing with them?" As he spoke Maclin was sorting and
arranging the papers--the old he put to one side; the newer ones on
the other. Some of the new ones were astonishingly good copies of the
old!

"Playing the old game, eh?" Maclin scowled. "I thought you'd had
enough of that, after----"

"For God's sake, Maclin, shut up."

"Been carrying these mementos around with you all these years?"

Maclin was reading a letter of Larry's father--an old one.

"No, I brought them with me from the old house. Mary-Clare had them,
but they were mine." Larry's face was white and set into hard lines.

"Sure, so I see." And Maclin was seeing a great deal.

He saw that Rivers had torn off, where it was possible, half pages
from the old and yellowed letters; these were carefully banded
together, while on fresh sheets of paper, the old letters in part, or
in whole, were cleverly copied.

There was one yellowed half sheet in the old doctor's handwriting
bearing a new form of expression--there was no original of this.
Maclin made sure of that. He read this new form once, twice, three
times.

"If the time should ever come, my girl, when you and Larry could not
agree, he'll give you this letter. It is all I could do for him; it
will prove that I trust you, at every turn, to do the right and just
thing. Stand by Larry, as I have done."

Maclin puffed out his cheeks. They looked like a child's red balloon.
"What in hell!" he ejaculated.