evidence. The chums also gave their
information that they had overheard the ex-foreman tell the negro that he
intended to jump bail. But the greatest of all was the news of the plot to
rescue the gambler prisoners now in jail.

Then the chums started back to camp.

"I noticed," said Lieutenant Prescott, in a low tone, "that you didn't
mention the conversation between Bascomb and Evarts."

"I hadn't any right to," Tom said simply. "If Mr. Bascomb once had trouble
in his life, but is living honestly now, it would be criminal of me to
expose such a secret that he wouldn't want known. Mr. Bascomb's past is
none of my business."

"I'm mighty glad to hear you talk that way about it," said Prescott,
resting a hand on Reade's shoulder.

"Why?" demanded Tom rather bluntly. "Did you think that I could feel any
other way about it?"

"But Evarts is pretty sure to talk a lot about Bascomb, now," hinted the
young army officer.

"If he does," sighed Tom, "I don't know that I can think of any way to
stop the fellow."

"Then you don't believe that Mr. Bascomb's evil record of past years
affects his honesty now?" Dick went on after a long pause.

"I don't believe it," Tom answered with unusual emphasis. "If I did it
would be as much as if I said that a fellow who once makes a wrong step
must never hope to get back into the right path again. Mr. Prenter, I am
certain, is an honest man and an unusually keen one. He is satisfied to
trust Mr. Bascomb as president of the company. But, if Evarts is some
sort of family connection of Bascomb's, and if he has often threatened to
tell all about Mr. Bascomb's past history, you can imagine the terror that
poor Mr. Bascomb has lived in for years."

"If I were in Bascomb's place," Dick declared positively, "I would go
before the board of directors and tell them the whole story. Then no one
else could ever hold any power over me."

"I guess that's the way all of us think we would act if we'd meet a
blackmailer," nodded Reade. "Yet I guess most of the victims, when there's
a sad, true story that could be told about them, pay the blackmailer and
so secure silence."

"Which may be another way," mused the young army officer, "of saying that
most men are cowards. Or, maybe, it's another way, after all, of saying
that the man who does anything very wrong or crooked is generally such a
coward at heart that he'll spend his savings in keeping his secret from the
world."

"Yet Basco