idly immersed in a study of the advertising
pictures. If she listened to the low-toned talk it was only
mechanically, one would say. Yet there was a quickening of the breath
now and again, and a pressing of the white teeth upon the ripe lower
lip, as she turned the pages of the advertising supplement; these,
though only detached sentences of the talk drifted across to her
window-seat.

"You're fixed to put the entire responsibility for the ruction over onto
the other side of the house?" was one of the overheard sentences: it was
her father's query, and she also heard the answer. "We're goin' to put
'em in bad, don't you forget it. There'll be some broken heads, most
likely, and if they're ours, somebody'll pay for 'em." A little farther
along it was her father who said: "You've got to quit this running to
me. Keep to your own side of the fence. Murray's got his orders, and
he'll pay the bills. If anything breaks loose, I won't know you. Get
that?" "I'm on," said the red-faced man; and shortly afterward he took
his leave.

When the door had closed behind the man who looked like a ward heeler or
a walking delegate, and who had been both, and many other and more
questionable things, by turns, Jasper Grierson swung his huge chair to
face the window.

"Well?" he said, "how's Galbraith coming along?"

"There is no change," was the sober rejoinder. "He is still lying in a
half-stupor, just as he was last night and this morning. Doctor Farnham
shakes his head and won't say anything."

"You mustn't let him die," warned the man in the big chair, half
jocularly. "There's too much money in him."

The smouldering fires in the daughter's eyes leaped up at the
provocation lurking in the grim brutality; but they were dying down
again when she put the trade journal aside and said: "I didn't come here
to tell you about Mr. Galbraith. I came to give you notice that it is
time to quit."

"Time to quit what?"

"You know. When I asked you to put Mr. Raymer under obligations to you,
I said I'd tell you when it was time to stop."

Jasper Grierson sat back in his chair and chuckled.

"Lord love you!" he said, "I'd clean forgot that you had a tea-party
stake in that game, Madgie; I had, for a fact!"

"Well, it is time to remember it," was the cool reply.

"What was I to remember?"

"That you were to turn around and help him out of his trouble when I
gave you the word."

The president of the Farmers' and Merchants' tilted his