ight
Willie Dart stayed on. Shandon declared he would drive him off the
place with a buggy whip, and Willie Dart said that he'd come back if he
was chased away. Shandon mentioned the police of New York, and Dart
asked him reproachfully if he delighted in wounding him in his most
sensitive part; wanted to know if his Noble Benefactor was the sort to
drive a man back into the mire he had just emerged from, to thwart all
effort to lead a pure, sweet, rural existence. Finally Shandon
contented himself by forbidding Dart to meddle in the future with
anything not in any way a part of his own business; and nourished the
secret hope that a few weeks of the humdrum of mountain life would tire
this sparrow of the city gutters. Whereupon, when alone with his big
book and a fresh cigar, Willie Dart soliloquised as follows:

"He's up against a good many things, poor old Red is. He's as bad in
love with Wanda as she is with him. Her old man is soured on Red and
is making the toboggan slide all bumpy. Then there's some sort of
trouble with Ettinger. There's a deal on somewhere I ain't wise to,
and Red ain't in on it. Wanda's old man is in on it, so's the Weak
Sister, meaning Garth, so's a gent name of Sledgehammer Hume. I guess
time's ripe for little Willie Dart to mix in and see what's what. He's
a square kid, is Red, and I'm going to help him put his affairs in
order."

And then making himself comfortable as he pondered in the biggest chair
in the well furnished living room, he sighed, twisted his cigar a
moment thoughtfully, sighed again, put his feet on the table and turned
to the pages of the big book. His fancy was caught by numerous and
attractive illustrations in a volume dealing with the mythology of the
ancients, and he was soon convinced that he was acquiring a scholarly
knowledge of the history of the old Greeks and Romans.

Wayne Shandon was distinctly surprised the next morning as he entered
the corral to encounter Sledge Hume sitting a sweating horse and
evidently in wait for him.

"You were looking for me?" he asked shortly. The last time he had
spoken to Hume was to quarrel with him, and to be drawn into hot words
with Arthur because of him. He made no pretence at making his tone
more than coldly civil.

"Yes," returned the other as bluntly. "I rode over from old man
Leland's on business."

Shandon frowned. His quick thought was that Martin, unwilling to
communicate personally with him, had sen