iss Geddis is a woman for
whom any self-respecting man could have little regard."

For the first time in the interview the ex-schoolmaster's mild eyes
grew hard.

"Then I am to infer that she has a hold of some sort upon you?"

"She has," I rejoined shortly.

"That simplifies matters still more," he averred, with as near an
approach to severity as one of his characteristics could compass. "I
don't wish to make or meddle to the extent of telling Polly what I have
heard and what you have admitted. But in justice to her and to me, you
should be man enough to stay away from the house and let Polly alone.
Am I unreasonable?"

"Not in the least. You might go much farther and still be blameless.
I have no valid excuse to offer, but if I should say that there are
extenuating circumstances----"

He raised a thin hand in protest.

"Let us leave it at the point at which there will be the least
ill-feeling," he cut in; and from that he switched without preface to a
discussion of the varying ore values in a newly opened adit of the mine.

When he was gone I went into Barrett's room. As I have intimated, one
of the troubles of mine-owning--if the mine be a producer--is to hold
the smelter people in line. Like other Cripple Creek property owners,
we had been up against the high costs of reduction almost from the
first, and we were constantly sending test consignments of our ore to
various smelters throughout the country, and even to Europe, in order
to obtain checking data.

"About that car-load of Number Three ore we are sending to Falkenheim
in California," I said to Barrett. "I'm going to break away and go
with it if you have no objections."

Barrett looked up quickly.

"I think that is a wise move, Jimmie; a very wise move," he said
gravely; and this meant that he, too, had been reading the Denver
newspapers. Then he added: "We can get along all right without you,
for awhile, and you may stay as long as you like. When will you go?"

"To-day; on the afternoon train."

"Straight west?--or by way of Denver?"

"Straight west, over the Midland, I guess."

This is what I said, and it is what I meant to do when I went back to
my own office to set things in order for the long absence--for I fully
meant it to be long. My office duties were not complicated, and the
few things to be attended to were soon out of the way. One of the
letters to be written was one that I did not dictate to the
stenographer. It was