counter. There was a mole patch on the
cheek such as Jack remembered that the accounts of John Prather had
mentioned.

"I am as much fussed as the giant was at the sight of yellow!"
Jack mused.

But for the mole patch the features were his own, as he knew them,
though no one not given to more frequent personal councils with mirrors
than Senor Don't Care of desert trails knows quite the lights and shadows
of his own countenance, which give it its character even more than does
its form. John Prather was regarding the jewelry display, where the
diamonds were scintillating under the light from the milk glass roof,
with a smile of amused contemplation. His expression was unpleasant to
Jack. It had a quality of satire and of covetousness as its owner leaned
farther over the rail and rubbed the palms of his hands together as
gleefully as if the diamonds were about to fly into his pockets by
enchantment.

All the time Jack had stood motionless in fixed and amazed observation.
He wondered that his stare had not drawn the other's attention. But John
Prather seemed too preoccupied with the dazzle of wealth to be
susceptible to any telepathic influence.

"Great heavens! I am gaping at him as if he were climbing hand over hand
up the face of a sky-scraper!" Jack thought. It was time something
happened. Why should he get so wrought up over the fact that another man
looked like him? "I'll get acquainted!" he declared, shaking himself free
of his antipathy. "We are both from Little Rivers and that's a ready
excuse for introducing myself."

As he started across the floor toward the stairs, Prather straightened
from his leaning posture. For an instant his glance seemed to rest on
Jack. Indeed, eye met eye for a flash; and then Prather moved away. His
decision to go might easily have been the electric result of Jack's own
decision to join him. Jack ran up the stairs. At the head of the flight
he saw, at half the distance across the floor, Prather's back entering an
elevator on the down trip. He hurried forward, his desire to meet and
speak with the man whose influence Jim Galway and Mary feared now
overwhelming.

"Hello!" Jack sang out; and this to Prather's face after he had turned
around in the elevator.

In the second while the elevator man was swinging to the door, Jack
and Prather were fairly looking at each other. Prather had seen that
Jack wanted to speak to him, even if he had not heard the call. His
answer was a smile o