suddenly misty and her lips trembled. She started to
speak, then gulped and remained silent. But gradually the color flowed
back into her cheeks, as pink as the laurel blossom's deep center, and
once more she gave her head that characteristic toss as though in
contempt for her moment of weakness.

"Mr. Brent, I hain't seekin' no favors an' I don't want nothin' but my
dues. I didn't know ye stood obleeged ter pay us 'twell ther logs went
down ter ther lowlands, but----" Though her words were slowly, even
tediously enunciated they seemed to come with difficulty. "But ef I
could take thet money back thar--an' tell him hit war all settled
up----" The fullness of what that meant to her gained in force because
she got no further with her explanation and Brent said with a
brusqueness, affected to veil his own sympathy: "Come on, let's go to
the bank."

The bank at Coal City is a small box of brick, with two rooms. At the
front the cashier's grating stands. At the rear is a bare chamber
furnished with a small stove, a deal table and a few hickory-withed
chairs. It is here that directors meet and hinterland financiers
negotiate. Into this sanctum Brent led Alexander Macedonia McGivins,
and for no particular reason, save that no one had forbidden it,
Halloway accompanied them.

The timber buyer scribbled his calculations on the back of an envelope
and submitted the results to the girl, who gravely nodded her
satisfaction.

"Then," said Brent with an air of relief, "there remain only two things
more. I shall now draw you a check for four thousand and ninety-one
dollars and fifty cents, and you will sign a receipt."

Halloway was sitting in the background where he could indulge in all
the staring he liked, and since Alexander had swum into his ken, that
had become a large order. As Brent finished, the girl who had been
sitting at the table with a pen in her hand, suddenly pushed back her
chair and into her eyes came an amazed disappointment--a keen anxiety.
For a moment she looked blankly at the man who was opening his check
book. She suddenly felt that she had been confronted with a financial
problem that lay beyond her experience and one which she deeply
distrusted. It was as though affairs hitherto simple, except for
physical dangers, had run into a channel of subtler and therefore more
alarming complication.

None of this escaped Halloway's lynx-like gaze but to Brent who was
smoothing out the folded check