e?"

"Charlie."

"And your address?"

The boy mentioned a distant subdivision.

"That _is_ out, isn't it? Well, we'll take the car. We'll run right
out and see what is to be done. I guess I'd better call a doctor at
once."

He went to the telephone and gave some directions. Then he and the boy
walked to a garage, and in a few moments were humming along the
by-streets into the country. Dave had already become engrossed in his
errand of mercy, and his rage at Conward, if not forgotten, was
temporarily dismissed from his mind. He chatted with the boy as he
drove.

"You go to school?"

"Not this year. Father has been too sick. Of course, this is
holidays, and he says he'll be all right before they're over."

Dave smiled grimly. "The incurable optimism of it," he murmured to
himself. Then outwardly, "Of course he will. We'll fix him up in no
time with a good doctor and a good nurse."

They drove on through the calm night, leaving the city streets behind
and following what was little more than a country trail. This was
crossed in every direction, and at every possible angle, by just such
other country trails, unravelling themselves into the darkness. Here
and there they bumped over pieces of graded street, infinitely rougher
than the natural prairie; once Dave dropped his front wheels into a
collapsing water trench; once he just grazed an isolated hydrant. The
city lights were cut off by a shoulder of foothill; only their dull
glow hung in the distant sky.

"And this is one of our 'choice residential subdivisions,'" said Dave
to himself, as with Charlie's guidance and his own in-born sense of
location he threaded his way through the maze of diverging trails.
"Fine business; fine business."

As the journey continued the sense of self-reproach which had been
static in him for many months became more insistent, and he found
himself repeating the ironical phrase, "Fine business, fine business.
Yes, I let Conward 'weigh the coal' all right." The intrusion of
Conward into his mind sent the blood to his head, but at that moment
his reflections were cut short by the boy.

"We will have to get out here," he said. "The bridge is down."

Investigation proved him to be right. A bridge over a small stream had
collapsed, and was slowly disintegrating amid its own wreckage. Dave
explored the stream bottom, getting muddy boots for his pains. Then he
ran the car a little to one side of the road, locked the