handshake. "But whar on airth did ye bury yerself? Between yer friend Mr. Dacre an' meself, the hull blame world was s'arched fer news of you; but you couldn't hev vanished more completely ef Jonah's whale had swallered you, or you'd been carried up to Heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah."

"Hello, Mac!" cried Power, eying his elderly companion with renewed interest. "Whence this Bib

lical flavor in your speech? Have you taken a muchneeded religious turn?

"It's fer example, an' that's a fac', Derry. Sence you boosted me inter bein' a notorious char-ac-ter, I've kind o' lived up ter specification. Thar's no gettin' away from it. Ye can't deal out prizes to a row o' shiny-faced kids in a Sunday-school without larnin' some of the stock lingo, an' bits of it stick. But don't let's talk about me. I want ter hear about you. Whar hev you been?"

"It's a long story, Mac, and will take some telling. Just now, looking around at this room and its familiar objects, my mind goes back through the years. What did you say to Nancy when she wrote and asked what had become of me?"

MacGonigal, who had made quite a speech at the reception, and had been unusually long-winded during the drive, reverted suddenly to earlier habit.

"Who's been openin' old sores?" he inquired.

66 No one.

That is all."

Nancy wrote to me before she died.

"Look-a here, Derry, why not leave it at that?"

Unhappily, I cannot do otherwise. But I have a right to know exactly what happened."

"It wasn't such a heap. She cabled an' wrote, an' I had to tell her you was plumb crazy about—about yer mother's death. That was the on'y reason I could hand out fer your disappearin' act. Pore thing! Soon after she got my letter she gev in her own checks." "Have you met Marten recently?"

"He was in Denver last fall.”

"And the child-the little girl-did you see her?” "Yep. Gosh, Derry, she's as like her mother as two peas in a pod."

"Is Marten fond of her?"

"Derry, that kid kin twist him round her little finger; but he's a hard man ter move any other way." 66 Where does he live?"

In Europe, fer the most part. He's out of mines an' rails-in the West, anyhow. Last I heerd, he was puttin' through a state loan fer the I-talians.” "Quite an international financier, eh?"

"That's what the papers call him. Guess it's Shakespeare's English fer a dog-goned shark." "You know Willard is dead?"

"Know! Didn't I celebrate with a school-treat fer two thousand kids?"

"Mac! Haven't they taught you better than that at your Sunday-schools?

"Thar's a proverb about skinnin' a Rooshan an' findin' a Tartar. That's me, all the time, when any any of that bunch shows up on the screen. What d'ye think Marten kem to Denver for? 99

"I can't imagine."

"He wanted ter buy the ranch. No, not the mine," for MacGonigal misread the amazement in Power's

face, "just the ranch. Said he was anxious for little Nancy to own the property whar her mother lived as a gal."

"And what did you say or do?"

"Handed him a joint straight outer the refrigerator, all fixed with mustard. 'Marten,' says I, just like that, 'Marten, ef you want yer little gal ter grow up good an' happy, don't let her suspicion thar's such a place as Dolores on the map. 'Why?' says he, lookin' black as thunder. Because,' says I, 'it's well named when thar's one of the Willard family on the location. Ef any children kin play around here an' be happy, they'll be Derry Power's, not yours. Sorry, Derry, ef ye didn't wish me ter rile him; but, till you was given up fer good, the one spot in Colorado his money couldn't buy was this yer house an' land."

And again did MacGonigal fail to interpret his hearer's expression, nor did he ever understand the tragic import of his words. The story of Nancy's transgression was buried with her, and the grave seldom gives up its secrets. Moreover, was she not nearly seven years dead? And seven years of death count in the scale of forgetfulness as against seventy and seven of life.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SECOND GENERATION

MARGUERITE SINCLAIR did not write.

Perhaps, tucked away in a corner of Power's heart, a tender little shoot of hope that she might be moved to disobedience and revolt blossomed for awhile. But it soon withered. She did not break the silence he had imposed on her. The quiet weeks passed. The vessel in which the girl and her father had traveled to London had already returned to South America; but never a word came from Marguerite. So far as externals went, Power seemed to have settled down again to the life of the student and the recluse from which he had been so rudely withdrawn. Beyond a rearrangement with Jake, whereby that pillar of the community was given the stock-raising business, while Power retained only the ranch, together with the paddocks and orchards in its immediate vicinity, there was no change in affairs at Bison. MacGonigal was offered a controlling interest in the mine; but he scoffed at the proposal. The proceeds of his third share would amount to nearly quarter of a million dollars for the current year, and his personal expenditure did not exceed a fifth of that sum.

"It's the Scot blood in me," he explained, when people rallied him as to his saving habits. "My greatgrandfather lost a sixpence one day in Belfast, an' the

family has been makin' good ever sence.

Thar ain't no sixpences here; so I run a dime bank. Another thing," and his bulging eyes challenged dispute, “it's a bully fine notion ter let well enough alone. This yer proposition is goin' along O. K. Let her rip!"

Power, of course, was accumulating wealth with every turn of the rolls in the reduction mills. The name of the mine became a standing joke in Colorado. "What price the El Preço outfit?" men would say, and spoke with bated breath of the millions it would bring in the open market. Not only were there almost unlimited supplies of rich ore in sight, but the very granite containing the main vein itself yielded handsomely under low-grade treatment. It seemed impossible that the undertaking should go wrong at any stage. If water was tapped, it went to irrigate new lands which MacGonigal had added to the ranch. If a new shaft was sunk, sufficient pay-ore was taken out of the excavation to meet the cost; whereas, in ninetynine mines among a hundred, the charge would have fallen on capital.

For three months Power lay fallow at Dolores. His bodily vigor was unimpaired; but his mind demanded the restorative tonic of peace. A Chicago bookstore sent him the hundred most important books which had been published during his absence from civilization, and, with their aid, he supplemented Marguerite's lessons, and soon brought himself abreast of contemporary thought. Beyond establishing a maternity hospital in Bison, and renewing the grant to Dr. Stearn's poor, he did not embark in philanthropic schemes to any great extent. Still, he found pressing need of