u call it square not to have told me of
this before you left?"

"I saw no obligation to take you into my confidence. In the first place
the result of my pilgrimage was very doubtful, and in the second you
would have done all you could to balk me. When have I given you reason
to write me down an ass?"

"You are too damned clever," muttered Colton. "Too clever by half. Much
better for you if you had stayed where you were. You had no enemies when
you left, but now, let me tell you, you've got a bunch that it will take
more than your cleverness to handle."

"They can do their worst. I thought that all I needed was hard work, but
I fancy that what I missed most was the stimulus of enemies."

"Well, you've got it all right."

Somewhat to the host's surprise he suddenly seated himself and tipped
back his chair. Gwynne remained standing, leaning against a pillar, his
hands in his pockets. Colton surveyed him frankly. His eyes were still
hard and he was very angry, but he saw no reason why he should be
uncomfortable, and although he could disguise his feelings when he
chose, he knew that here it was safe to allow himself the luxury of
frankness. He was the more annoyed, as what friendship he was capable of
he had given to Gwynne. That would not have stayed hand or foot a
moment, were his path in the least obstructed, but he regretted that
they had come to an issue so early in the game. Indeed, he had hoped to
manipulate Gwynne's destinies so subtly that they would be politically
bound for life, with himself always a length ahead. It was true that
once or twice he had felt a misgiving that the Englishman, with all his
aristocratic disdain for devious ways, might match him and win, but the
shock of this early outwitting had been none the less severe.

"Did you have a hard time getting it?" he demanded.

"Rather. Never heard so much palaver in my life."

"Well, I wish there had been more. I think I have at least the right to
ask what you intend to do next."

"Return to Judge Leslie's office to-morrow--for the matter of that, I
have read a good deal since I left. In September I shall have been a
year in the State, and of course I can vote. I am not so sure that I
shall."

"Yes! That is all, I suppose?"

"For the present. You are too good a politician to fancy that American
citizenship has invested me with a halo. Except to a hundred odd
farmers, Rosewater, a small group in San Francisco, and a party boss or
two, I am u