ou
on the door-step of some orphan asylum before we're through with you."

"Come on, Lou," said Cargan. "Drayton's a smart guy, Doc. Where's his
proof? Eloped with the bundle of dry goods this young man's taken a
fancy to. And even if he had the money--I've been up against this many a
time. You're wasting your talents, Doc. Good night! Come on, boys."

The three stamped out through the dining-room, and from the window Mr.
Magee watched them disappear down the road that stretched to Asquewan
Falls.

CHAPTER XVIII

A RED CARD

Mr. Magee turned back from the window to the dim interior of the hotel
office. He who had come to Baldpate Inn to court loneliness had never
felt so lonely in his life. For he had lost sight of her--in the great
Reuton station of his imagination she had slipped from his dreams--to go
where he could not follow, even in thought. He felt as he knew this
great bare room must feel each fall when the last laugh died away down
the mountain, and the gloom of winter descended from drab skies.

Selecting a log of the hermit's cutting from the stock beside the
hearth, Mr. Magee tossed it on the fire. There followed a shower of
sparks and a flood of red light in the room. Through this light Kendrick
advanced to Magee's side, and the first of the Baldpate hermits saw that
the man's face was lined by care, that his eyes were tired even under
the new light in them, that his mouth was twisted bitterly.

"Poor devil," thought Magee.

Kendrick drew up chairs for himself and Magee, and they sat down. Behind
them the bulky Mrs. Norton dozed, dreaming perhaps of her Reuton
boarding-house, while Miss Thornhill and the professor talked
intermittently in low tones. The ranks at Baldpate were thinning
rapidly; before long the place must settle back with a sigh in the cold,
to wait for its first summer girl.

"Mr. Magee," said Kendrick nervously, "you have become involved in an
unkind, a tragic story. I do not mean the affair of the bribe--I refer
to the matter between Hayden and myself. Before Peters comes back
with--the men he went for--I should like to tell you some of the facts
of that story."

"If you had rather not--" began Magee.

"No," replied Kendrick, "I prefer that you should know. It was you who
took the pistol from--his hand. I do not believe that even I can tell
you all that was in Hayden's mind when he went into that other room and
closed the door. It seems to me preposterous that a man o