rattlesnake who first takes up
board and lodgings and then possession in a prairie dog's burrow. And if
the traveler's tale is true that the rattlesnake sometimes makes a meal
of his landlord, the story told at Sidon may be equally credible that
the original pioneer mysteriously disappeared about the time that Dan
Harcourt came into the property. From which it would seem that Harcourt
is not in a position for his friends to invite very deep scrutiny into
his 'pioneer' achievements."

Stupefaction, a vague terror, and rising anger, rapidly succeeded each
other in the young man's mind as he stood mechanically holding the
paper in his hand. It was the writing of his chief editor, whose easy
brutality he had sometimes even boyishly admired. Without stopping to
consider their relative positions he sought him indignantly and laid the
proof before him. The editor laughed. "But what's that to YOU? YOU'RE
not on terms with the old man."

"But he is my father!" said John Milton hotly.

"Look here," said the editor good-naturedly, "I'd like to oblige
you, but it isn't BUSINESS, you know,--and this IS, you
understand,--PROPRIETOR'S BUSINESS too! Of course I see it might stand
in the way of your making up to the old man afterwards and coming in for
a million. Well! you can tell him it's ME. Say I WOULD put it in. Say
I'm nasty--and I AM!"

"Then it must go in?" said John Milton with a white face.

"You bet."

"Then I must go out!" And writing out his resignation, he laid it before
his chief and left.

But he could not bear to tell this to his wife when he climbed the hill
that night, and he invented some excuse for bringing his work home. The
invalid never noticed any change in his usual buoyancy, and indeed I
fear, when he was fairly installed with his writing materials at the
foot of her bed, he had quite forgotten the episode. He was recalled to
it by a faint sigh.

"What is it, dear?" he said looking up.

"I like to see you writing, Milty. You always look so happy."

"Always so happy, dear?"

"Yes. You are happy, are you not?"

"Always." He got up and kissed her. Nevertheless, when he sat down to
his work again, his face was turned a little more to the window.

Another serious incident--to be also kept from the invalid--shortly
followed. The article in the "Clarion" had borne its fruit. The third
day after his resignation a rival paper sharply retorted. "The cowardly
insinuations against the record of a justly