disappointed and distressed the girl. He evinced not a whit more
interest than he would have done in watching a stranger stamp the mud
off his feet, or, for that matter, than he would have shown had the
roof broken into flames over his head. But he took the case.

Upon a storm filled night, as black as ebony, Brisbane met Wayne
Shandon in White Rock. A man lived there, whom Shandon could trust, an
old friend of his father, and at his house the meeting was held with
little difficulty or danger. In less than two hours Brisbane had put
himself in possession of all the facts which Shandon could give him
that bore upon the matter in hand. There was the germ of a case
against Hume he admitted, but it would have to grow considerably to be
worth anything to a jury. Yes, the crooked work in the foreclosure of
the mortgage would help a little; not much though. He would attend to
the mortgage, taking Shandon's note for the amount, and would see that
it was paid off immediately. As to advising Shandon as to the best
thing to do now, the lawyer smiled one of his rare, noncommittal smiles.

"By avoiding arrest in the first place," he said drily, "you put
yourself in wrong with any jury in the world. But you've done it
already. I can't see now that it makes much difference whether you go
and give yourself up or whether you keep on the dodge. If you prefer
this sort of thing to a nice warm jail, why suit yourself my boy!"

He would see further that the shrewdest detective in the City was fully
instructed and put on the case immediately. Finally he gave Shandon a
letter from Wanda in which she promised to return to the valley as soon
as possible, shook hands as warmly as his absent minded manner would
permit and went to bed.

Through the winter the various threads of men's destinies, golden and
black, gay and sombre, too fine for human eye to see, too strong for
human might to break, were being woven into the intricate pattern of
life and fate. Though miles lay between the many men whose lives were
unalterably mingled, though each man went selfishly or unselfishly
about his own pursuits, although each fashioned daily his life for the
day, still the mills of God were grinding, the looms were weaving, and
grist and kernel, warp and woof found their way from the individual
existences into the scheme of the whole.

Dart had left with Mrs. Leland and Wanda and made a straight line to
Big Bill and Little Saxon. He made it hi