t made good to give his wife. How much did you say you
was going to get for this article?"

Mr. Magee looked him coolly in the eye.

"If it's ever written," he said, "it will be a
two-hundred-thousand-dollar story."

"There ain't anything like that in it for you," replied the mayor.
"Think over what I've told you."

"I'm afraid," smiled Magee, "I'm too busy to think."

He again crossed the office floor to the stairway. Before the fire sat
the girl of the station, her big eyes upon him, pleadingly. With a
reassuring smile in her direction, he darted up the stairs.

"And now," he thought, as he closed and locked the door of number seven
behind him, "for the swag. So Cargan would give twenty thousand for that
little package. I don't blame him."

He opened a window and glanced out along the balcony. It was deserted in
either direction; its snowy floor was innocent of footprints.
Re-entering number seven, he knelt by the fireplace and dug up the brick
under which lay the package so dear to many hearts on Baldpate Mountain.

"I might have known," he muttered.

For the money was gone. He dug up several of the bricks, and rummaged
about beneath them. No use. The fat little bundle of bills had flown.
Only an ugly hole gaped up at him.

He sat down. Of course! What a fool he had been to suppose that such
treasure as this would stay long in a hiding-place so obvious. He who
had made a luxurious living writing tales of the chase of gems and plate
and gold had bungled the thing from the first. He could hammer out on a
typewriter wild plots and counter-plots--with a boarding-school girl's
cupid busy all over the place. But he could not live them.

A boarding-school cupid! Good lord! He remembered the eyes of the girl
in blue corduroy as they had met his when he turned to the stairs. What
would she say now? On this he had gaily staked her faith in him. This
was to be the test of his sincerity, the proof of his devotion. And now
he must go to her, looking like a fool once more--go to her and confess
that again he had failed her.

His rage blazed forth. So they had "got to him", after all. Who? He
thought of the smooth crafty mountain of a man who had detained him a
moment ago. Who but Cargan and Max, of course? They had found his
childish hiding-place, and the money had come home to their eager hands.
No doubt they were laughing slyly at him now.

Well, he would show them yet. He got up and walked the floor. Once he
had