devil do you want?"

"I don't know--I'll be _damned_ if I know!" and Claiborne grinned, so
that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage's
slumbering wrath.

"You'd better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you
can't explain yourself I'm going to tie you hand and foot and drop you
down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my
grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs
and rummaging in my trunks?"

"I didn't _come_ here, Armitage; I was brought--with a potato sack over
my head. There's the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn't on
my face must be permanently settled in my lungs."

"What are you doing up here in the mountains--why are you not at your
station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and
hurry up!"

"Armitage"--as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his
finger-tips on it--"Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during
our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and
cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the
ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you.
Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the
Army and Navy Club that night; and now--"

"Damn my cigarette case!" bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his
pocket to make sure of it.

"That's what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,--you must admit
that."

"It was, indeed!"

"It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like
that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of the gentlemen!"

"No doubt of it whatever, Mr. Claiborne."

Armitage unbuttoned his coat, and jerked back the lapels impatiently.

"And I knew as much about Monsieur Chauvenet as I did about you, or as I
do about you!"

"What you know of him, Mr. Claiborne, is of no consequence. And what you
don't know about me would fill a large volume. How did you get here, and
what do you propose doing, now that you are here? I am in a hurry and
have no time to waste. If I can't get anything satisfactory out of you
within two minutes I'm going to chuck you back into the sack."

"I came up here in the hills to look for you--you--you--! Do you
understand?" began Claiborne angrily. "And as I was riding along the road
about two miles from here I ran into three men on horseback. When I
stopped to parley with them and