will."

The retiring manager urged the point no further. "If you have decided
upon my successor and he is on the ground I shall be glad to give the
afternoon to running over with him the affairs of the office. It would
be well for him to retain for a time my private secretary and
stenographer."

"Mr. Mott will succeed you. He will no doubt be glad to have your
assistance in helping him fall into the routine of the office, Mr.
Hobart."

Harley sent for Mott at once and told him of his promotion. The two men
were closeted together for hours, while trusted messengers went and
came incessantly to and from the mines. Hobart knew, of course, that
plans were in progress to arm such of the Consolidated men as could be
trusted, and that arrangements were being made to rush the Taurus and
the New York. Everything was being done as secretly as possible, but
Hobart's experience of Ridgway made it obvious to him that this
excessive activity could not pass without notice. His spies, like those
of the trust, swarmed everywhere.

It was not till mid-afternoon of the next day that Mott found time to
join him and run over with him the details of such unfinished business
as the office had taken up. The retiring manager was courtesy itself,
nor did he feel any bitterness against his successor. Nevertheless, he
came to the end of office hours with great relief. The day had been a
very hard one, and it left him with a longing for solitude and the wide
silent spaces of the open hills. He struck out in the direction which
promised him the quickest opportunity to leave the town behind him. A
good walker, he covered the miles rapidly, and under the physical
satisfaction of the tramp the brain knots unraveled and smoothed
themselves out. It was better so--better to live his own life than the
one into which he was being ground by the inexorable facts of his
environment. He was a young man and ambitious, but his hopes were not
selfish. At bottom he was an idealist, though a practical one. He had
had to shut his eyes to many things which he deplored, had been driven
to compromises which he despised. Essentially clean-handed, the soul of
him had begun to wither at the contact of that which he saw about him
and was so large a part of.

"I am not fit for it. That is the truth. Mott has no imagination, and
property rights are the most sacred thing on earth to him. He will do
better at it than I," he told himself, as he walked forward bareheaded
i