worth having except here," replied
Dan Anderson, quietly.

"Oh, now, don't say that. Mr. Ellsworth tells me that he has known you
for a long time, and has the greatest admiration for you as a lawyer."

"Yes, Mr. Ellsworth is very fond of me. He's one of the most passionate
admirers I ever had in my life," said Dan Anderson.

Barkley looked at him again keenly, realizing that he had to do with a
quantity not yet wholly known and gauged.

Socially the situation was strained, and he sought to ease it after his
own fashion. "You see," he resumed, "Mr. Ellsworth seems to think that
he can put you in a way of doing something for yourself up at Heart's
Desire."

It was an ugly thing for him to do under the circumstances, but if he had
intended to humiliate the other, he met his just rebuke.

"I don't often talk business at breakfast in my own house," said Dan
Anderson. "Do you use tabasco with your _frijoles_?"

"Oh, we'll get together, we'll get together," Barkley laughed, with an
assumed cordiality which did not quite ring true.

"Thank you," Dan Anderson remarked curtly; "you bring me joy this
morning."

He did not relish this sort of talk in the presence of Constance
Ellsworth. Disgusted with himself and with all things, be arose and made
a pretence of searching in the wagon. Rummaging about, his hand struck
one of the round, gutta-percha plates which had accompanied the
phonograph. With silent vigor he cast it far above the tree tops below
him on the mountain side.

"That," he explained to Constance as he turned, "is the 'Annie Laurie'
record of the Heart's Desire grand opera. The season is now over." The
girl did not understand, but he lost the hurt look in her eyes.
Irritated, he did not hear her soul call out to him.

"It's the luckiest thing in the world that you happen to be here." Mr.
Ellsworth took up again the idea that was foremost in his mind. "You fit
in like the wheels in a clock. We're going to run our railroad up into
your town--I don't mind saying that right here--and we're going to give
you plenty of law business, Mr. Anderson; that is to say, if you want it,
and will take it."

"Thank you," said Dan Anderson, quietly. But now in spite of himself he
felt his heart leap suddenly in hope. Suppose, after all, there should
be for him, stranded in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, a chance
for some sort of business success? Suppose that there should be, after
all, some work f