XIV. "Prove It!... Prove It!" 180
XV. A Highgrader--In Principle 189
XVI. One Maid--Two Men 201
XVII. A Warning 218
XVIII. Two Ambushes 237
XIX. Mr. Verinder Is Treated To A Surprise 243
XX. Colter Takes A Hand 250
XXI. Spirit Rapping? 264
XXII. The Acid Test 274
XXIII. Captain Kilmeny Retires 284
XXIV. Two In A Bucket 291
XXV. Homing Hearts 309

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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE

Kilmeny's alert eyes swept again and again the trail
leading up the gulch. He did not intend to be caught
napping by the officers _Frontispiece_ 67

"He's hooked pretty fast. Take your time about getting
him into your net. These big fellows are likely to squirm
away" 33

They rode through a world shot to the core with sunlight.
The snow sparkled and gleamed with it 177

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THE HIGHGRADER

PRELUDE

A young idealist, _aetat_ four, was selling stars to put in the sky. She
had cut them with her own scissors out of red tissue paper, so that she
was able to give a guarantee.

"But you'll have to get the ladder out of our bedroom to put 'em up
wiv," she told purchasers honestly.

The child was a wild dark creature, slim and elfish, with a queer little
smile that flashed sudden as an April sun.

It was evening, on the promenade deck of an ocean liner. The sea was
like glass and the swell hardly perceptible. Land was in sight, a vague
uneven line rising mist-like on the horizon. Before morning the
_Victorian_ would be running up the St. Lawrence. Even for the most
squeamish the discomforts of the voyage lay behind. A pleasant good
fellowship was in the air. In some it took the form of an idle
contentment, a vague regret that ties newly formed must so soon be
broken. In others it found an expre