be--Mrs. Dyke and Sidney having been installed in the Trees' old
house--Hilma threw her arms around her husband's neck.

"Fine," she exclaimed, "oh, it was fine of you, dear to think of them
and to be so good to them. My husband is such a GOOD man. So unselfish.
You wouldn't have thought of being kind to Mrs. Dyke and Sidney a little
while ago. You wouldn't have thought of them at all. But you did now,
and it's just because you love me true, isn't it? Isn't it? And because
it's made you a better man. I'm so proud and glad to think it's so. It
is so, isn't it? Just because you love me true."

"You bet it is, Hilma," he told her.

As Hilma and Annixter were sitting down to the supper which they found
waiting for them, Louisa Vacca came to the door of the dining-room
to say that Harran Derrick had telephoned over from Los Muertos for
Annixter, and had left word for him to ring up Los Muertos as soon as he
came in.

"He said it was important," added Louisa Vacca.

"Maybe they have news from Washington," suggested Hilma.

Annixter would not wait to have supper, but telephoned to Los Muertos
at once. Magnus answered the call. There was a special meeting of the
Executive Committee of the League summoned for the next day, he told
Annixter. It was for the purpose of considering the new grain tariff
prepared by the Railroad Commissioners. Lyman had written that the
schedule of this tariff had just been issued, that he had not been able
to construct it precisely according to the wheat-growers' wishes,
and that he, himself, would come down to Los Muertos and explain its
apparent discrepancies. Magnus said Lyman would be present at the
session.

Annixter, curious for details, forbore, nevertheless, to question. The
connection from Los Muertos to Quien Sabe was made through Bonneville,
and in those troublesome times no one could be trusted. It could not
be known who would overhear conversations carried on over the lines.
He assured Magnus that he would be on hand. The time for the Committee
meeting had been set for seven o'clock in the evening, in order to
accommodate Lyman, who wrote that he would be down on the evening train,
but would be compelled, by pressure of business, to return to the city
early the next morning.

At the time appointed, the men composing the Committee gathered about
the table in the dining-room of the Los Muertos ranch house. It was
almost a reproduction of the scene of the famous evening when Osterm