ned
quickly as his friend approached, and he burst out with his curt but
honest single-syllabled laugh. "Ha! You look a little less like a roving
Apache than you did when you came. I really thought the waiters were
going to chuck you. And you ARE tanned! Darned if you don't look like
the profile stamped on a Continental penny! But here's luck and a
welcome back, old man!"

Demorest passed his arm around the neck of his seated partner, and
grasping his upraised hand said, looking down with a smile, "And now
about Barker."

"Oh, Parker, d--n him! He's the same unshakable, unchangeable,
ungrow-upable Barker! With the devil's own luck, too! Waltzing into
risks and waltzing out of 'em. With fads enough to put him in the insane
asylum if people did not prefer to keep him out of it to help
'em. Always believing in everybody, until they actually believe in
themselves, and shake him! And he's got a wife that's making a fool of
herself, and I shouldn't wonder in time--of him!"

Demorest pressed his hand over his partner's mouth. "Come, Jim! You know
you never really liked that marriage, simply because you thought that
old man Carter made a good thing of it. And you never seem to have taken
into consideration the happiness Barker got out of it, for he DID love
the girl. And he still is happy, is he not?" he added quickly, as Stacy
uttered a grunt.

"As happy as a man can be who has his child here with a nurse while his
wife is gallivanting in San Francisco, and throwing her money--and
Lord knows what else--away at the bidding of a smooth-tongued, shady
operator."

"Does HE complain of it?" asked Demorest.

"Not he; the fool trusts her!" said Stacy curtly.

Demorest laughed. "That is happiness! Come, Jim! don't let us begrudge
him that. But I've heard that his affairs have again prospered."

"He built this railroad and this hotel. The bank owns both now. He
didn't care to keep money in them after they were a success; said he
wasn't an engineer nor a hotel-keeper, and drew it out to find something
new. But here he comes," he added, as a horseman dashed into the drive
before the hotel. "Question him yourself. You know you and he always get
along best without me."

In another moment Barker had burst into the room, and in his first
tempestuous greeting of Demorest the latter saw little change in his
younger partner as he held him at arm's length to look at him. "Why,
Barker boy, you haven't got a bit older since the day whe