y curved in a
grim smile.

Orde did not go home. Instead, he walked down Main Street to the docks
where he jumped into a rowboat lying in a slip, and with a few rapid
strokes shot out on the stream. In his younger days he had belonged to
a boat club, and had rowed in the "four." He still loved the oar, and
though his racing days were past, he maintained a clean-lined, rather
unstable little craft which it was his delight to propel rapidly with
long spoon-oars whenever he needed exercise. To-day, however, he was
content to drift.

The morning was still and golden. The crispness of late fall had infused
a wine into the air. The sky was a soft, blue-gray; the sand-hills
were a dazzling yellow. Orde did not try to think; he merely faced the
situation, staring it in the face until it should shrink to its true
significance.

One thing he felt distinctly; yet could not without a struggle bring
himself to see. The California lands must be mortgaged. If he could
raise a reasonable sum of money on them, he would still be perfectly
able to meet his notes. He hated fiercely to raise that money.

It was entirely a matter of sentiment. Orde realised the fact clearly,
and browbeat his other self with a savage contempt. Nevertheless his
dream had been to keep the western timber free and unencumbered--for
Bobby. Dreams are harder to give up than realities.

He fell into the deepest reflections which were broken only when the
pounding of surf warned him he had drifted almost to the open lake.
After all, there was no essential difference between owing money to a
man in Michigan and to a man in California. That was the net result of
his struggle.

"When the time comes, we'll just borrow that money on a long-time
mortgage, like sensible people," he said aloud, "and quit this
everlasting scrabbling."

Back to town he pulled with long vigorous strokes, skittering his
feathered spoon-oars lightly over the tops of the wavelets. At the slip
he made fast the boat, and a few minutes later re-entered the office,
his step springy, his face glowing. Newmark glanced up.

"Hullo!" said he. "Back again? You look better."

"Exercise," said Orde, in his hearty manner. "Exercise, old boy! You
ought to try it. Greatest thing in the world. Just took a row to the end
of the piers and back, and I'm as fit as a fiddle!"

XXXVI

Orde immediately set into motion the machinery of banking to borrow on
the California timber. Taylor took charge