seat uneasily.

"Ferdy, shut up--you bother me. I am working."

But Ferdy did not heed either this warning or the look on Gordon's face.
His game had now a double zest: he could sting Gordon and worry Rhodes.

"I don't see why my old man was such a fool as to want such a dinged
lonesome old place for, anyhow," he said, with a little laugh. "I am
going to give it away when I get it."

Gordon's face whitened and flamed again, and his eyes began to snap.

"Then it's the only thing you ever would give away," said Mr. Rhodes,
pointedly, without raising his eyes from his work.

Gordon took heart. "Why did you come down here if you feel that way
about it?"

"Because my old man offered me five thousand if I'd come. You didn't
think I'd come to this blanked old place for nothin', did you? Not
much, sonny."

"Not if he knew you," Said Mr. Rhodes, looking across at him. "If he
knew you, he'd know you never did anything for nothing, Ferdy."

Ferdy flushed. "I guess I do it about as often as you do. I guess you
struck my governor for a pretty big pile."

Mr. Rhodes's face hardened, and he fixed his eyes on him. "If I do, I
work for it honestly. I don't make an agreement to work, and then play
'old soldier' on him."

"I guess you would if you didn't have to work."

"Well, I wouldn't," said Mr. Rhodes, firmly, "and I don't want to hear
any more about it. If you won't work, then I want you to let me work."

Ferdy growled something under his breath about guessing that Mr. Rhodes
was "working to get Miss Harriet Creamer and her pile"; but if Mr.
Rhodes heard him he took no notice of it, and Ferdy turned back to
the boy.

Meantime, Gordon had been calculating. Five thousand dollars! Why, it
was a fortune! It would have relieved his father, and maybe have saved
the place. In his amazement he almost forgot his anger with the boy who
could speak of such a sum so lightly.

Ferdy gave him a keen glance. "What are you so huffy about, Keith?" he
demanded. "I don't see that it's anything to you what I say about the
place. You don't own it. I guess a man has a right to say what he
chooses of his own."

Gordon wheeled on him with blazing eyes, then turned around and walked
abruptly away. He could scarcely keep back his tears. The other boy
watched him nonchalantly, and then turned to Mr. Rhodes, who was
glowering over his papers. "I'll take him down a point or two. He's
always blowing about his blamed old place as if he still ow