st common stealing." Hendricks moistened his lips and sat
with mute face gazing at the colonel. The colonel went on, "And now
the farmers have found it out, and the devil's to pay, sir, with no
pitch hot!"

Hendricks cleared his throat and began, "Well, Colonel--I don't know;
of course I--"

The elder man rose to his full height and glared at the younger, and
cried, "Ah, Robert, Robert, fire in the mountain, snakes in the
grass--you do know--you do know, sir. You know that to hold up the
farmers of this county in the midst of what amounted to a famine, not
to let them borrow a dollar in the county except on a gouging
mortgage, and then to slip into that mortgage a blind option to sell
for ten dollars an acre land that is worth three times that, is
stealing, and so does John Barclay know that, and, worst of all, so
does Martin Culpepper know that, and the farmers are finding it
out--my neighbours and comrades that I helped to swindle, sir--to
rob, I may say--they know what it is."

The colonel's voice was rising, and he stood glaring and puffing
before the young man, shaking his head furiously. Young Hendricks was
engaged in swallowing his Adam's apple and blinking unsteadily, and
just as he started to reply, the colonel, who had caught his temper by
the horn and was shaking it into submission, cried: "Yes, sir, Robert,
that's what I said, sir; those were my very words in point of fact.
And," he began as he sat down and sighed, "what galls me most of all,
Robert, is that John laughs at me. Here you've been gagging and
gulping and sputtering, boy, to keep down your conscience, and so I
know--yes, Robert, I'm dead sure, I may say, that you're all right;
but John giggles--giggles, sir, snickers in point of fact, as though
he had done something smart in getting me to go out among my old
soldier friends and rob 'em of their homesteads. He doesn't care for
my good name any more than for his own."

Hendricks drummed with his fingers on the desk before him. His blue
eyes looked into nothing, and his mind's eye saw the house of cards he
had been dallying with totter and fall. He drew a deep breath before
he looked up at the colonel, and said rather sadly: "Well, Colonel,
you're right. I told John the day after I came home that I wouldn't
stand it." He drummed with his fingers for a moment before continuing,
"I suppose you got about half of those contracts, didn't you?"

The colonel pulled from his pocket a crumpled paper an