u!" said Lettis. "Shall I be able to see him this
afternoon?"

"Oh, mercy, yes!" said Miss Mary Ann. "Tom is home all day."

"I can thank the kind fates for that," said Lettis. "I had begun
to think he was a myth," and he fell in upon the tender meat with
the vigorous appetite of youth and a good digestion.

Nathaniel Lettis was by no means a fool, and he had experience in
business, but the mainspring of the young fellow was frankness, and
in the course of the dinner he told his errand. Mr. Demilt had
written to his firm explaining the advantages of starting a
straw-board factory in Fairfield. It was too small a thing for the
firm to be interested in, but Lettis had a small capital which he
wished to invest in an enterprise of his own handling, and it had
struck him that there might be a chance for independence; therefore
he had come to find out the lay of the land.

* * * * *

Red Saunders' first-glance liking of the stranger deepened as he
told of his business. The cowman did not blame people who took
devious ways and dealt in ambiguities, for his experience in the
world, which was pretty fairly complete, had told him that craft
was a necessity for weak natures; nevertheless he cared not for
those who used it.

In his part of the West, a man would no more think of giving a
false impression of his financial standing to alter his position in
one's regard, than he would wear corsets. Money was of small
consequence; its sequelae of less. Men spoke openly of how much
they made; how they liked the job; how their claims were paying;
such matters were neutral ground of chance conversation, as the
weather is in the East. The rapid and unpredictable changes of
fortune gave a tendency to make light of one's present condition.
A man would say "I'm busted" without any more feeling than he would
say "I have a cold." Now, in Fairfield, that is not likely
lonesome in that respect, one of the principal objects in life was
to conceal the poverty which would persist in sticking its gaunt
elbows through the cloth of words spread over it. Red asked
straight-forward questions--shrewd ones, too--seeing that the other
was one of his own kind and would not resent it.

Lettis wanted nothing better than a chance to expand on the
subject. It was close to his heart. He had been a subordinate
about as long as a proud and masterful young fellow ought to be.
Now he was quivering to try his own strength, an