got to the one thing that had evidently been rankling in his heart.

"Jim, you're the biggest puzzle I ever struck. Every time I look at you
I have to rub my eyes to see if I'm awake. Would you mind telling me
the mental process by which you rejected my offer?"

"What's the use to discuss it, I've made up my mind--and that's the end
of it."

"But I want to know," Bivens persisted. "Your silence on the subject
makes me furious every time I think of it. How any human being outside
of an insane asylum could be so foolish is beyond my ken."

"I know it is, so let's drop it," Stuart interrupted.

"I won't drop it. You rile me. You're the only man I've struck on this
earth that didn't have his price."

"Perhaps we have different ways of fixing values. To me value is a
thing which gives life. If it brings death is it valuable? You are not
yet fifty years old and a wreck. What's the use? What can you do with
your money now?"

"It brings luxury, ease, indulgence, power, admiration, wonder, and the
envy of the world."

"What's the good of luxury if you can't enjoy it; ease if you never
take it; indulgence when you have lost the capacity to play; power if
you're too busy getting more to stop and wield it?"

"Jim, you're the biggest fool I ever knew, without a single exception,"
Bivens said, petulantly.

Stuart glanced anxiously toward the yacht. It was three o'clock. The
tide had ebbed half out and there was barely enough water on the flats
now for the tender to cross. It was snowing harder and the wind had
begun to inch in toward the north.

"No more ducks to-day, Cal," Stuart said briskly, returning to his tone
of friendly comradeship. "We've got to get away from here. It's getting
colder every minute. It will be freezing before night."

"Well, let it freeze," Bivens cried, peevishly. "What do we care? It's
just ten minutes' run when the tender comes."

To Stuart's joy he saw the men start the tender.

"It's all right, they're coming now!" he exclaimed. "We'll have another
crack or two before they get here."

He crouched low in the blind for five minutes without getting a shot,
rose and looked for the tender. To his horror he saw her drifting
helpless before the wind, her engine stopped and both men waving
frantically their signals of distress.

"My God!" he exclaimed. "The tender's engine is broken down."

Bivens rose and looked in the direction Stuart pointed.

"Why don't the fools use the oars?"

"The