fter her most of the day."

"What's the matter with Captain Sedgwick?"

"He has a greedy eye. He'll play any game he goes into for his own
hand. Not an unusual plan, but there's generally a code of rules and
if it's going to pay him, Sedgwick will break them. Anyhow, as it
looks as if Mrs. Chudleigh had him earmarked, why can't he let the girl
alone?"

Blake, who had taken a protective interest in Millicent, was somewhat
disturbed, but would not admit it.

"Oh!" he said, "our army men aren't ascetics, but I dare say the
fellow's a harmless philanderer, and you're a bit of a Puritan."

"I'm married and don't forget it," snapped Harding. "Marianna--that's
Mrs. Harding--is living in a two-room tenement, making her own dresses
and cooking on a gasoline stove, so's to give me my chance of finding
the gum. And I'm here in an expensive hotel, where I've made about
five dollars commission in three days and written our people several
folios about the iniquities of the Canadian tariff, which is all I've
done. We have got to pull out as soon as possible. Did you get any
information from the Hudson's Bay man?"

"I learned something about our route through the timber-belt and the
kind of camp outfit we'll want; the temperature's often fifty below in
winter. Then I was in Revillons', looking at their cheaper furs, and
in a store where they supply especially light hand-sledges, snowshoes,
and patent cooking cans. We must have these things good, and I
estimate they'll cost six hundred dollars."

"Six hundred dollars will make a big hole in our capital."

"I'm afraid so, but we can't run the risk of freezing to death, and we
may have to spend all winter in the wilds."

"That's true; I don't go back until I find the gum."

Harding's tone was resolute, and when he leaned forward, musing, with
knitted brows, Blake, knowing his story, gave him a sympathetic glance.
He had entered the paint factory when a very young man and had studied
chemistry in his scanty spare time with the object of understanding his
business better. He found the composition of varnishes an interesting
subject, and as the best gums employed came from the tropics and were
expensive he began to experiment with the exudations from American
trees. His employers hinted that he was wasting his time, since the
limits to the use of these products were already known, but Harding
continued, trying to test a theory that the texture and hardness of the
gums