straight, sober, and a worker.
I've been looking for a man that is a man to run things here, now that
I'm getting a bit stiff in the joints. Hetty likes him first-rate
too."

All this in an interrogatory tone. Of course, it was easy to fill the
_lacunae_ in the text. Silas Upham adored his daughter and his
ranch. If Hetty married Wilkins, the artful Silas would gain an able-
bodied, capable major-domo, and he would not lose his pet lamb. I
said, rather tartly--

"Look here, Upham, you know nothing of Wilkins, and I advise you and--
er--Miss Hetty to go slow."

"I do go slow," said my host, "but Hetty likes to buzz along. She's a
mover, she is."

As we rode home I told Ajax that Opportunity had thrust into Wilkins'
hand a very tempting morsel. Was he going to swallow it? And ought we
to ask some questions?

I think it was on the following Wednesday that Wilkins walked over to
the ranch-house, and asked for a job.

"I've left Upham," he said curtly.

We had not much to offer; such as it was, Wilkins accepted it. Ajax
drove to Upham's to fetch Wilkins' blankets and belongings. When he
came back, he drew me aside.

"Silas offered him the billet of foreman. Wilkins _refused it_."

* * * * *

A month passed. Wilkins worked hard at first, and his ability, his
shrewdness, confounded us, as it had confounded Silas Upham. Then, he
began to slack, as boys put it. Small duties were ill done or not done
at all. But we liked him, were, indeed, charmed by him. As Ajax
remarked, Fascination does not trot in the same class with Respect.

Twice I caught that shameless little witch, Hetty, in our back
pasture, where Wilkins was splitting rails. Thrice a week she called
at the ranch-house on her way to the post office.

"She means to marry Wilkins," said Ajax to me. "And why not? If one
woman has made him--er--invertebrate, let Hetty Upham put backbone
into him."

That evening we asked Wilkins to witness a legal paper, some agreement
or other. He signed his name Henry Wilkins. Ajax stared at me; then he
walked to the bookcase. His voice was very hard, as he turned, Harrow
register in hand, and said: "The only Wilkins at Tommy's was Theodore
Vane Wilkins."

Wilkins rose, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. Ajax scowled.

"We told Silas Upham that you were an old Harrovian," began my
brother.

"So I am; but my name is not Wilkins." He lit a cigarette, before he
continued quietly: "I'm a fraud.