whose door a white-and-black sign told the stranger, or applicant
for work, that he was at the "office."

A man came to a window in a picketed wicket as he entered, and said
briskly: "Well?"

"I want to see Mr. Presby," Dick answered, wasting no more words than
had the other.

"Oh, well, if nobody else will do, go in through that door."

Before he had finished his speech, the bookkeeper had turned again
toward the ledgers spread out on an unpainted, standing desk against
the wall behind his palings, and Dick walked to the only door in
sight. He opened it, and stepped inside. A white-headed, scowling man,
clean shaven, and with close-shut, thin, hard lips, looked up over a
pile of letters and accounts laid before him on a cheap, flat-topped
desk.

Dick's eyes opened a trifle wider. He was looking at the man who had
defied the mob at the road house, and at this close range studied his
appearance more keenly.

There was hard, insolent mastery in his every line. His face had the
sternness of granite. His hands, poised when interrupted in their
task, were firm and wrinkled as if by years of reaching; and his heavy
body, short neck, and muscle-bent shoulders, all suggested the man who
had relentlessly fought his way to whatever position of dominancy he
might then occupy. He wore the same faded black hat planted squarely
on his head, and was in his shirt-sleeves. The only sign of
self-indulgence betrayed in him or his surroundings was an old
crucible, serving as an ash tray, which was half-filled with cigar
stumps, and Dick observed, in that instant's swift appraisement, that
even these were chewed as if between the teeth of a mentally restless
man.

"You want to see me?" the man questioned, and then, as if the thin
partition had not muffled the words of the outer office, went on:
"You asked for Presby. I'm Presby. What do you want?"

For an instant, self-reliant and cool as he was, Dick was confused by
the directness of his greeting.

"I should like to have you tell that watchman over at the Croix d'Or
that we are to be admitted there," he replied, forgetting that he had
not introduced himself.

"You should, eh? And who are you, may I ask?" came the dry, satirical
response.

Dick flushed a trifle, feeling that he had begun lamely in this
reception and request.

"I am Richard Townsend," he answered, recovering himself. "A son of
Charles Townsend, and a half-owner in the property. I've come to look
the Croix