Ridgway of Montana (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain)

did not, however, drive to his club, but took a cab straight for his rooms, where he had telegraphed Eaton to meet him with the general superintendent of all his prope

hings might have happened in that time. He might be coming back to catastrophe and

attack and insatiate of success. His steel-hard eyes gave no hint of the Arcadia they had inhabited so eagerly a short twenty-four hours before. The intoxicating madness he had known was chained deep within him. Once more he had a grip on himself; was sheathed in a cannonproof pla

commerce, and sailed under no flag except the one of insurrection he had floated. But all of them, though they were associated with him and hoped to ride to fortune on the wave that carried him there,

he properties he had not seen for six days. Hour after hour he passed examining the developments, sometimes in the breasts of the workings and again consulting with engineers and foremen in charge. Light was breaking in the sky before he stepped from the cage of the Jack Pot and boarded a street-car for his rooms.

had accumulated during his absence at the mining camp of Alpine and the subsequent period while he was snowbound. These his kee

r to Riley's lawyer, telling him I can't afford to put a premium on incompetence and negligence; that if his client was injured in the Jack Pot explosion, he has nobody but himself to blame for it. Otherwise, of course, I should be glad to pension him. Let me see th

s good-looking, after a boyish, undistinguished fashion, but one disposed to be critical might have voted the chin not quite definite enough. He had been a clerk of the Consolidated, working for one

alarm. Unless I guess wrong, it is merely a

ler

wrong. I don't care if he is the b

u won't

t the whole outfit, lo

th it if the property is no g

ine last week, and both of them reported favorably. I've let it leak out to their lawyer, O'Malley, that

y know you ha

o let then have the property since they wanted it so badly, so this morning he s

tling finesse of this sort his chief excelle

night. That is where he must have been going.

l irritate him a trifle, but that can't be helped. I needed tha

piling up against us that must be met. There's t

t," said the ch

. I've noticed he has been pretty close to Mott lately. I ex

ut that. He did arrange to sell the note

ow

t vault. Before he sold, I had a few words with him. He changed his mind and decided he preferred t

"You're a wonder, Waring. There's nobody like you. Ca

nce to find that

out in person to run the fi

g any longer. He's here," c

On the

es

e here without

you that I

rself?" demanded the t

im and cuffed him," announced Ridgwa

ou say?" gasped t

have already me

you s

and cuffed him. That

k with his thumbs in the armholes of his fancy waistcoat a

say-CUF

im around quite a bit-manhandled him in

worshipped anything, it was wealth. He was a born sycophant, and it was partly because his naive unstinted admiration had contributed to satisfy his chief

u're only joking,"

twelve hours. Where C

t him and been properly

s w

d her out of

is a r

eve. But it is a true one, anyhow, not

Harley's wife out of a snow-

ired the other, judicially. "But I

wo weeks ago to Miss Aline Hope. Did he bri

it with me alone in a miner's cabin," the other

Eaton helplessly. "You've piled up too many

o an empty cabin near. She and her husband were motoring from Avalanche to Mesa, and the machine had broken down. Harley had gone for help and l

tory that it came hom

h Harley's wife-and h

ay back his strength gave out, and that was when I roughed him. I tried to bullyrag him into k

him! With

like a man to desert a woman on

n asked the question in his mind. "I've seen her

women. It would imagine the story of those three days of enforced confinement together, and it would look to the woman in the case for an answer to its suspicions. That she was young, lovely, and yet ha

n the table and leaned across with h

ss. But you're my friend, and I tell you I would rather be hacked in pieces by Apaches than soil that child's white soul by a single unclean breath. There mustn't be any talk. Do you understand? Keep the story out of the newspapers. Don't let any of our people gossip about it. I hav

n-it will be the wo

ree days to three hours, Steve. Anythi

ll, but if it does I'll see the gossips get the ri

don't need to tell you that I'll be

ircled the table and put a hand on the younger man's shoulder affectionately. Steve

told that, old pal