Oh, I've seen it for a long, long time. The demand is simply
tremendous. Now meet it!"

Haynerd looked confusedly from Carmen to Hitt. The latter turned to
the girl. "What, exactly, do you mean, Carmen?" he asked.

"Let him publish now a clean magazine, or paper; let him print real
news; let him work, not for rich people's money, but for all people.
Why, the press is the greatest educator in the world! But, oh, how it
has been abused! Now let him come out boldly and stand for clean
journalism. Let him find his own life, his own good, in service for
others."

"But, Carmen," protested Hitt, "do the people want clean journalism?
Could such a paper stand?"

"It could, if it had the right thought back of it," returned the
confident girl.

Haynerd had again lapsed into sulky silence. But Hitt pondered the
girl's words for some moments. She was not the first nor the only one
who had voiced such sentiments. He himself had even dared to hold the
same thoughts, and to read in them a leading that came not from
material ambitions. Then, of a sudden, an idea flamed up in his mind.

"The Express!" he exclaimed.

Carmen waited expectantly. Hitt's eyes widened with his expanding
thought. "Carlson, editor of the Express, wants to sell," he
continued, speaking rapidly.

"It's a semi-weekly newspaper, printed only for country circulation;
has no subscription list," commented Haynerd, with a cynical shrug of
his shoulders.

"Buy it!" exclaimed Carmen. "Buy it! And change it into a daily! Make
it a real newspaper!"

Hitt looked into Carmen's glowing eyes. "How old are you?" he suddenly
asked. The abruptness of the strange, apparently irrelevant question
startled the girl.

"Why," she replied slowly, "as old as--as God. And as young."

"And, as human beings reckon time, eighteen, eh?" continued Hitt.

She nodded, wondering what the question meant. Hitt then turned to
Haynerd. "How much money can you scrape together, if you sell this lot
of junk?" he asked, sweeping the place with a glance.

"Five or six thousand, all told, including bank account, bonds, and
everything, I suppose," replied Haynerd mechanically.

"Carlson wants forty thousand for the Express. I'm not a rich man, as
wealth is estimated to-day, but--well, oil is still flowing down in
Ohio. It isn't the money--it's--it's what's back of the cash."

Carmen reached over and laid a hand on his arm. "We can do it," she
whispered.

Hitt hesitated a moment longer,