him for
fuller detail and he proceeded cheerfully. "The Halloway millions
didn't come to us on a tray borne by angels. My father made his pile,
and much of it he made in coal and iron--here and there in the
Appalachians. He trained me up in that business. Why, I even worked
during school vacations as a telegraph operator in the office of the
local railroad station." He smiled again as he added, "Add that item
to my versatile summary. I'm as good a key tickler as you would be apt
to find in a day's journey."

"At all events you are a surprising reprobate," admitted the lumberman
with a yawn. "Someday, though, I'll challenge you to a sending and
receiving tourney. I began in a broker's office, and I'm fairly good
myself."

But after Halloway had thrown himself down on his bed and his regular
breathing attested his sound sleep, Brent slipped noiselessly out into
the corridor. Halloway might feel certain of the girl's ability to
fend for herself but with this crowd here to-night, running its wild
gamut of dissipation, the less primitive man thought it as well to keep
an eye on her safety.

Down the hall, dimly lighted by a single smoking lamp, he saw a figure
which had been standing before Alexander's door, draw furtively back
around the angle of a wall. From below stairs still came the din of
wassailing.

Yet instead of alarm, a smile came to Brent's eyes, for he had
recognized Bud Sellers and he no longer distrusted the boy's purposes.

In Alexander's room the lamp had long been blown out but to the eyes of
the girl sleep did not come at once. She gazed at the window where
occasional flashes of lightning woke and died. She was wondering what
had happened back there at the house where her father lay wounded. Of
Bud Sellers she thought only as of a man she had promised not to kill,
though against him, as an instrumentality of her grief, resentment
burned hot. She could not guess that he stood at that moment in the
hallway, guarding her door and nursing in his contrite heart an
unexpressed and hopeless worship of her.

For Bud, save when the liquor conquered him, was a kindly soul; even
lovable as a faithful dog might be, though of that canine virtue people
thought less than of his occasional rabies.

He had talked with Alexander--always impersonally--a scant half dozen
times in his life--but since boyhood he had dreamed of her as a peasant
may dream of exalted nobility--and his life had never known a