ad invented something, and he told the secret of it to his
son. After a little the son wanted to tell it to a friend. The old man
said, 'Hold on; I know it--that's one'--holding up one finger--'you know
it--that's eleven'--holding up another finger beside the first; 'and now
if you tell this other fellow, that'll be one hundred and eleven'--holding
up three fingers. That is the case with this programme. One of the one
hundred and eleven--he is a person high up in the management of the
Overland Short Line--dropped a few words in my hearing and I picked them
up. That's all."

"It is fearfully short--the time, I mean," he said after another pause.
"We can't count on any help from any one in authority. Guilford's broom
has swept the high-salaried official corners clean. But the wage-people
are mutinous and ripe for anything. I'll go and find out where we stand."
And he groped on the floor of the veranda for his hat.

"No, wait a minute," she interposed. "We are not quite ready to adjourn
yet. There remains a little matter of compensation--your compensation--to
be considered. You are still on the company's payrolls?"

"In a way, yes; as its legal representative on the ground."

"That won't do. If you carry this thing through successfully it must be on
your own account, and not as the company's paid servant. You must resign
and make terms with Boston beforehand; and that, too, without telling
Boston what you propose to do."

He haggled a little at that.

"The company is entitled to my services," he asserted.

"It is entitled to what it pays for--your legal services. But this is
entirely different. You will be acting upon your own initiative, and
you'll have to spend money like water at your own risk. You must be free
to deal with Boston as an outsider."

"But I have no money to spend," he objected.

Again the brown eyes grew luminous; and again she said:

"What would you do without me? Happily, my information came early enough
to enable me to get a letter to Mr. Ormsby. He answered promptly by wire
this morning. Here is his telegram."

She had been winding a tightly folded slip of paper around her fingers,
and she smoothed it out and gave it to him. He held it in a patch of the
electric light between the dancing leaf shadows and read:

"Plot Number Two approved. Have wired one hundred thousand to Kent's order
Security Bank. Have him draw as he needs."

"So now you see," she went on, "you have the sinews of war.