it's about five thousand a year, a little more or a little less. Now I'll
tell you what we're prepared to do. We'll hand you twenty thousand dollars
the day you put your signature to a contract with us. Then we'll agree to
pay you fifteen thousand dollars a year for a three-years' term. And to
make the whole thing copper riveted, we'll put the whole amount in the
bank now, subject to your order as you go along. So that even if the new
league should break up, you could loaf for three years and be sixty-five
thousand dollars to the good."

With the air of one who had played his trump card and felt sure of taking
the trick, Westland from out his pocket drew a fountain pen.

"Put up your pen, Mr. Westland," said Joe calmly, "unless you want to
write to those who sent you here that there's nothing doing."

Jim brought his fist down on the arm of his chair with a bang.

"That's the stuff, Joe!" he cried jubilantly. "You knocked a home run that
time."

A look of blended astonishment and vexation came into Westland's eyes. He
seemed to doubt the evidence of his ears.

"Surely you're joking, Mr. Matson," he said. "No man in his senses would
turn down such an offer as that."

"I must be out of my senses then," replied Joe, "for that's exactly what
I'm doing."

"Perhaps you think we're bluffing," said Westland, "but money talks, and
here is where it fairly shouts."

He drew from his pocket a roll of bills of large denominations and laid it
on the table.

"There's the signing-up money," he explained. "They wanted me to bring a
certified check, but I insisted on the actual cash. Count it if you like
and take it to the bank if you doubt that it's good. There's twenty
thousand dollars in that roll, and every cent of it's yours if you put
your name at the bottom of this contract."

He laid an official-looking document on the table beside the bills, and
leaned back in his chair, ostensibly intent on the end of his cigar, but
watching Joe keenly from the corner of his eyes.

That pile of crisp yellowbacks was more money than Joe had ever seen at
one time in his life, except through the bars of a cashier's cage. And all
he had to do was to reach out, sign his name, and the next minute thrust
the bills into his pocket. They meant independence. They meant security.
They meant the power and comfort and luxury that money can give.

But they also meant treachery and dishonor, and Joe never wavered for an
instant.

"It's a lot