ta naturally seem to get together wherever they are. And Miss Ruth
is a mighty nice little girl."

Across the blazing bonfire two men scrutinized each other: Forbes
Westcott, one of the cleverest attorneys of a large city, a man with a
rising reputation, who held himself as a man does who knows that every
day advances his success; Richard Kendrick, well-known young
millionaire, hitherto a travelled idler and spender of his income, now
a newly fledged business man with all his honours yet to be won. They
looked each other steadily in the eye as they grasped hands by the
bonfire, and in his inmost heart each man recognized in the other an
antagonist.

Richard skated away with Miss Drummond, a wholesomely gay and attractive
girl who could skate as well as she could talk and laugh. He devoted
himself to her for half an hour; then, with a skill of which he was
master from long exercise, he brought about a change of partners. The
next time he rounded the bend into a path which led straight down the
moonlight it was in the company he longed for.

Richard's heart leaped exultantly as he skated around the river bend in
the moonlight with Roberta. And when his hands gathered hers into his
close grasp it was somehow as if he had taken hold of an electric
battery. He distinctly felt the difference between her hands and those
of the other girl. It was very curious and he could not wholly
understand it.

"What kind of gloves do you wear?" was his first inquiry. He held up the
hand which was not in Roberta's muff and tried to see it in the dim
light.

"You _are_ deep in the new business, aren't you?" she mocked. "Whatever
they are, will you put them into your stock?"

"Don't you dare make fun of my new business. I'm in it for scalps and
have no time for joking. Of course I want to put this make in stock. I
never took hold of so warm a hand on so cold a night. The warmth comes
right through your glove and mine to my hand, runs up my arm, and stirs
up my circulation generally. It was running a little cold with some of
the things Miss Drummond was telling me."

"What could they be?"

"About how all the rest of you know each other so well. She described
all sorts of good times you have all had together on this river in the
summer. It seems odd that Benson never told me about any of them while
we were together at college."

"They have happened mostly in the last two summers, since Mr. Benson
left college. We always spend at lea