ily at it that his eyes were
full of tears when he turned to look down upon the waiting culprit.

"No, Collins; I'm not going to ask you the name of the other master for
whom you have thrown me down," he said gravely; and then: "That's
all--you may go now."

The young man got up and groped for the hat which had fallen from his
hands to the floor and rolled away out of reach.

"You mean that I'm to get my time-check?" he asked.

"No," he grated--the harshness returning suddenly. "You are disloyal,
and I know it; your successor would probably be the same, and I
shouldn't know it."

Nerved to the strident pitch now by the new resolution, Blount hurriedly
set his desk in order, slammed it shut, and followed the stenographer to
the street level. In the avenue he hesitated for a moment, the thoughts
shuttling swiftly. In a flash the inferences fell into place. Gantry had
said that his father was responsible for the time-killing journey to
Lewiston. Why had it been necessary? Was it to keep him out of Gryson's
way? What did the ward-organizer have to communicate that made him so
anxious to secure an interview? Was that anxiety the breach through
which the wider field of corruption might be reached?

Again swift decision came to its own and Blount faced to the right,
walking rapidly until he turned in at the foot of the worn double flight
of stairs leading to the editorial rooms of _The Plainsman_. Blenkinsop,
the editor, a lean, haggard man with a sallow face, coarse black hair
worn always a little longer than the prevailing cut, and deep-set,
gloomy eyes, was at his desk.

"Can you give me a few minutes of your time, Blenkinsop?" the caller
asked shortly.

"I can sell 'em to you, maybe," said the editor, and the lift of the
gloomy eyes merely served to turn the jest into a bit of morbid sarcasm.
Then he gave the sarcasm a half-bitter twist: "You railroad gentlemen
are always willing to buy what you can't reach out and take."

"I know that is what you believe," said Blount, drawing up a broken
chair and planting himself carefully in it; "we are on opposite sides of
the fence in this fight, if you are fighting the railroad merely because
it is a railroad; otherwise, perhaps, we are not so far apart as we
might be. I don't know whether or not you have listened to any of my
speeches, but you've printed a good many of them."

The editor nodded. "I've read 'em, and I'm willing to be the hundredth
man and say that I beli