lf, for Daney could see to it that no one in Port
Agnew employed her, even had anyone in Port Agnew dared run such risk.
Also, the Tyee Lumber Company might bluff her out of possession of the
Sawdust Pile. However, Donald would have to be reckoned with in either
case, and Mr. Daney was not anxious to have the weight of his young
master's anger fall on his guilty head. He saw, therefore, that some
indirect means must be employed.

Now, Mr. Daney wisely held, in contradiction to any number of people
not quite so hard-headed as he, that absence does _not_ tend to make
the heart grow fonder--particularly if sufficient hard work and worry
can be supplied to prevent either party to the separation thinking too
long or too intensely of the absentee. Within a decent period
following Nan's hoped-for departure from Port Agnew, Mr. Daney planned
to impress upon The Laird the desirability of a trip to the Orient,
while he, Daney, upon the orders of a nerve-specialist, took a long
sea voyage. Immediately the entire burden of seeing that the Tyee
Lumber Company functioned smoothly and profitably would fall upon
Donald's young and somewhat inexperienced shoulders. In the meantime,
what with The Laird's money and the employment of a third party or
parties, it would be no trick at all to induce Nan Brent to move so
far from Port Agnew that Donald could not, in justice to his business
interests, desert those interests in order to pay his court to her.

"Dog my cats!" Mr. Daney murmured, at the end of a long period of
perplexity. "I have to force the girl out of Port Agnew, and I can
never do so while that motor-boat continues to pay her eighty dollars
a month. She cannot exist on eighty dollars a month elsewhere, but she
can manage very nicely on it here. And yet, even with that confounded
charter canceled, we're stuck with the girl. She cannot leave Port
Agnew without sufficient funds to carry her through for a while, and
she'd die before she'd accept the gift of a penny from anybody in Port
Agnew, particularly the McKayes. Even a loan from The Laird would be
construed as a roundabout way of buying her off."

Mr. Daney pondered his problem until he was almost tempted to butt his
poor head against the office wall, goat-fashion, in an attempt to
stimulate some new ideas worth while. Nevertheless, one night he
wakened from a sound sleep and found himself sitting up in bed, the
possessor of a plan so flawless that, in sheer amazement, he a