"That's pretty," dimpled Constance. "I wanted to look nice to-day."

Mr. Gresham's self-esteem arose several degrees. He smiled his thanks of her compliment to the appointment he had made with her.

"My call to-day is rather a formal one," he told her, smiling, and approaching the important subject-matter in hand directly but quite easily, he thought. "It is in relation to the will of your Aunt Gertrude, which has been the cause of some embarrassment to us both, and to you particularly, I fear."

"Naturally," she assented, still smiling, however.

This was easy sailing. Gresham walked over and took the chair nearest her.

"It is, of course, unnecessary to discuss the provisions made by your Aunt Gertrude," he stated. "Even had such a will never been written, I am quite sure that the result would have been the same, and that to-day, after the long friendship which I have enjoyed with you, I should be asking you, as I am now, to become my wife," and taking her hand in his, he very gracefully kissed it.

Constance as gracefully drew it away.

"You have done your duty very nicely, Mr. Gresham," she said. "It must have been as awkward for you to be compelled to make this proposal as it is for me to be compelled to refuse it. It would be wicked for us to marry."

"You are very harsh," he managed to protest. "I am sure that I should not feel wicked in marrying you."

"Perhaps you haven't my sort of conscience," answered Constance, laughing to conceal her intense hatred and contempt of him.

Gresham, adopting also the light manner of small talk, laughed with her.

"Really it wouldn't be so bad," he urged. "We would make a very fair couple when we were averaged. You are beautiful and accomplished enough to make up for all the deficiencies I may have."

"You do say nice things to me," acknowledged Constance, "but there is one deficiency you have overlooked. We do not love each other, and that is fatal to Aunt Gertrude's rather impertinent plans. It renders even a discussion of the matter impossible. I can not marry you ever."

Gresham's lips turned dry.

"I believe you really mean that," he stumbled, unable quite to comprehend it.

"Certainly I do," she assured him.

"But you don't understand," he protested. "You can't understand or you would at least take time for more serious consideration. You are relinquishing your entire fortune!"

"Making myself a penniless pauper," she mocked with a light-hearted feeling that some one—description mentally evaded—would make a fortune unnecessary.

"It is a million dollars," he insisted.

"A million—that sounds familiar!" and she laughed in remembrance of her tilt with Polly.

Gresham swallowed three separate and very distinct times.

"A half-interest in that million is mine," he complained. "You can not turn over your share to an absurd charity without also throwing mine away. It is not fair."

"Fair?" repeated Constance. For an instant she felt her temper surging, then caught herself and took refuge in burlesque. "The only fair thing about it is that my Aunt Gertrude's will gave her orphaned niece the choice between a title with riches and poverty with freedom," and raising her eyes and hand toward heaven she started to sweep from the room with queenly grace, stifling a giggle as she went.

"Wait just a minute," begged Gresham, suppressing his anger. "We should arrange in some way to keep the money. We can, at least, be practical."

Constance, whose faculties were not so concentrated as his, heard a rustle on the stairs and glancing out through the portieres into the hall, saw Polly, without her hat, hurrying to the front door. The bell had not rung, and she divined that Polly, out of the boudoir window, had seen some particular company approaching.

"It seems impossible," she returned, and waited.

"Not quite," Gresham assured her with a smile. "There is one way we could carry out the provisions of your aunt's will and still force no repugnant companionship upon you."

"I think I see," replied Constance—"you mean that we part at the altar," and in spite of all her efforts to keep her face straight she finally laughed.

"Well, I didn't intend to put it quite in that melodramatic way," resented Gresham.

"Polly wins," declared Constance. "She bet me a five-pound box of chocolates that you would make that proposal, but I didn't really think you would do it."

"This is too serious a matter for flippancy," and Gresham bit his lip. "The plan I suggest is thoroughly sensible."

"That's why I reject it," stated Constance.

Gresham bent his frowning brows on the floor. Constance, through the portieres, saw Polly and Johnny Gamble.

"I think we shall consider the incident as closed," she added hastily, with a wicked desire to have him go out and meet Johnny in the hall.

"You are making a horrible mistake," Gresham told her, losing his restraint and raising his voice. "I think I know the reason for your relinquishing your Aunt Gertrude's million so lightly. You expect to share the million Mr. Gamble is supposed to have made!"

Constance paled and froze. Despite her low opinion of Gresham she had not expected this crudity.

"You may as well dismiss that hope," he roughly continued—"Mr. Gamble has no million to give you!"

Mr. Gamble at that moment bulged through the portieres, with Polly Parsons hanging to his coat tails. He laid an extremely heavy hand on Gresham's shoulder and turned him round.

"I want to see you outside!" declared Johnny, husky with rage.

Polly, at the risk of life and limb, placed her ample weight between them. "Don't, Johnny!" she implored. "Don't! Constance doesn't want any door-step drama, with all the neighbors for audience. Wait till you get him down an alley and then give him an extra one for me!"

Gresham had retired behind a chair.

"This is no place for a personal encounter," he urged.

Johnny turned to Constance, pitifully afraid that he should be denied his rights.

"Can't I put him out?" he begged.

Constance had been panic-stricken, but on this she smiled easily.

"Only gently, Johnny," she granted.

"Remember there are ladies present," urged Polly.

"I won't hurt Paul," promised Johnny, responding to her smile with a suddenly relieved grin, and, taking Gresham daintily by the coat sleeve with his thumb and forefinger, he led the unresisting cousin of Lord Yawpingham to the front door. Polly opened it for him, and, grabbing Gresham's silk hat, put it hastily askew and hindside before upon his bewildered head.

Johnny did not strike him or shove him, but the graceful and self-possessed Gresham, attempting desperately to recover those qualities and to leave with dignity, stumbled over the door-mat and scrambled wildly down the stone steps, struggling to retain his balance.

Colonel Bouncer, just starting up the steps with Loring, Sammy Chirp, Winnie, Val Russel and Mrs. Follison, hastily and automatically gave him a helping shove on the shoulder which sent him sprawling to the walk, where he completed his interesting exhibition by turning a back somersault.

"Glimmering gosh, Colonel!" protested Val, as he hurried to pick up Gresham, laughing, however, as did the others, on account of the neighbors. "Why did you do that?"

"I thought Johnny Gamble pushed him," humbly apologized the colonel.

Bruce Townley and the Courtney girls arrived, and in the gay scramble for wraps Johnny had a moment with Constance.

"Well, I lose," he said regretfully. "There isn't much chance to make that million between now and four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

"What's the difference?" inquired Constance, smiling contentedly into his eyes.

Only the presence of so many people prevented her fichu from being mussed.

"There's a lot of difference," he asserted with a suddenly renewed impulse, the world being greatly changed since she had refused Gresham. "I set out to get it, and I won't give it up until four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

"If you want it so very badly I hope that you get it then," she gently assured him.

Her shoulder happened to touch his arm and he pressed against it as hard as he could. She resisted him.

"Ready, Constance?" called Polly.

"In just a minute," Johnny took it on himself to reply. "How does the score board look by this time?"

Constance hesitated, then she blushed and drew from a drawer of the library table the score board. The neatly ruled pasteboard had been roughly torn into seven pieces—but it had been carefully pasted together again!



CHAPTER XXIII

IN WHICH THE BRIGHT EYES OF CONSTANCE "RAIN INFLUENCE"

There being no cozy corners aboard Mr. Courtney's snow-white Albatross in which a couple with many important things to say could be free from prying observation, Johnny and Constance behaved like normal human beings who were profoundly happy. They mingled with the gaiety all the way out through the harbor to the open sea, and then they drifted unconsciously farther and farther to the edge of the hilarity, until they found themselves sitting in the very prow of the foredeck with Mr. Courtney and his friend from the West. If they could not exchange important confidences they could at least sit very quietly, touching elbows.

Mr. Courtney's friend from the West was a strong old man with keen blue eyes, who sat all through the afternoon in the same place, talking in low tones with Courtney on such dry and interminable subjects as railroads, mines, freight rates, stocks, bonds and board meetings.

Constance wondered how an otherwise nice old man could reach that age without having accumulated any lighter and more comprehensible objects of interest, and she really doubted the possibility of any man's understanding all the dry-as-dust business statistics with which he was so handy. Suddenly, however, Johnny Gamble awoke from his blissful lethargy and bent eagerly forward.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Boise," he interjected into the peaceful conversational flow of the older men. "Did I understand you to say that the S. W. & P. had secured a controlling interest in the B. F. & N. W.?"

Constance looked at Johnny in dismay. If he, too, intended to talk in nothing but the oral sign language, she had a wild idea of joining the frivolous crowd on the afterdeck, where at least there was laughter.

Mr. Boise looked at Johnny from under shaggy eyebrows.

"It's not generally known," he stated, struggling between a desire to be pleasant to a fellow guest and a regret that he had fancied Johnny absorbed too much in Constance to be interested in sotto voce affairs.

"That's what that territory needs," Johnny briskly commented. "As long as the S. W. & P. and the B. F. & N. W. were scrapping, the Sancho Hills Basin had as good service with burros."

Both Boise and Courtney laughed.

"Be careful, Johnny," warned Courtney. "Mr. Boise is president of the S. W. & P., and is now also virtually president of the B. F. & N. W."

Constance sighed, but stuck gamely to her post. After all Johnny was having a good time, and he actually seemed to understand what they were talking about. There was no question that Johnny was a smart man!

"I'm glad he is president of both," said Johnny, "for with consolidation things will start humming out there."

"Thank you," laughed Boise, no longer regarding Johnny as an impertinent interloper. "That's what we hope to do."

"The first thing you'll start will be a cut right across the Sancho Hills Basin, which will shorten your haul to Puget Sound by five hundred miles and open up a lot of rich new land."

Boise studied him with contracted brows.

"That's a good guess," he admitted. "You seem to know a lot about that country."

"I own some land out there," grinned Johnny. "Your best route will be from Marble Bluffs to Sage City, and from there straight across to Salt Pool, then up along the Buffalo Canon to Silver Ledge and on to the main line."

"That's one of the three routes I've been worrying over," agreed Boise, admiring Johnny's frankness. "I promised to wire my chief engineer to-morrow which one to put through."

Constance noticed a slight squaring of Johnny's lower lip, and she felt leaping within her a sudden intense interest in S. W. & P. and B. F. & N. W.

"What are the others?" asked Johnny.

Mr. Boise promptly drew a canvas-backed map from his pocket. Mr. Courtney reached for a folding deck chair. Constance helped Mr. Boise spread out the map. Johnny weighted down the corners with a cigar-case, a watch, a pocket-knife and a silver dollar.

"The favorite route at present," pointed out Boise, "is from Marble Bluffs round by Lariat Center, across to Buffalo Canyon and up to Silver Ledge. The other one is right through Eagle Pass."

"That one won't do at all," declared Johnny earnestly.

"It's the shortest," insisted Boise.

"You'd have to tunnel through solid granite," objected Johnny, "and the only traffic you would pick up would be from two or three dead mining towns. In the Sage City and Salt Pool route you would open up a big, rich, farming territory."

"That route is the one I have practically discarded," said Boise. "Right through here," and he put a broad forefinger on the map, "is a large stretch of worthless arid land."

"Yes, I know," admitted Johnny, hitching closer, "but right here"—and he pointed to another place—"is Blue Lake, and with very simple engineering work, which has been begun, it could be brought down to turn that whole district into land rich enough to load your cars with wheat, corn and cattle. Just now that water wastes itself through Buffalo Canyon and doesn't do a pound of work until it hits the big river."

Mr. Boise studied the map reflectively. Mr. Courtney studied it interestedly. Johnny studied it eagerly. Constance, with her hands folded in her lap, looked on with puzzled wonder.

"Why, there's the S. W. & P.!" she exclaimed, as she discovered the letters along a graceful black line.

"And here," supplemented the smiling Courtney, "is the B. F. & N. W.!"

"I see," returned Constance delightedly. "They're both railroads! They run up into Washington and Oregon, but the S. W. & P. has to go away round this big pink spot. If it cuts right across there it can go to Washington much quicker. Why, I should think by all means that the route by way of Sage City and Salt Pool would be the best!"

Mr. Boise surveyed her with joyous eyes and chuckled until his breast heaved. "It might be," he admitted with a friendly glance at Johnny.

"One big advantage," urged Johnny, "is that it would be an all-level route, with solid ground and but very little grading," and he plunged with breathless energy into the task of convincing Mr. Boise that the Sage City and Salt Pool route was the only feasible one.

They discussed that topic for two solid hours, but before the first thirty minutes had elapsed Johnny had unconsciously reached over into Constance's lap and had taken one of her hands. There seemed to be nothing in particular that she could do about it, so she let him keep it, and he used it occasionally to gesture with. What difference did it make if Courtney and Boise did smile about it at first?

When the railroad party had been dispersed by Winnie—who had constituted herself rigid master of the revels—Constance and Johnny found themselves tete-a-tete up in the prow for just a tiny moment.

"Do you suppose he'll decide on the Sage City and Salt Pool route?" she anxiously inquired.

"I hope so," declared Johnny. "If he does, I think I see a chance to make a little money."

"Maybe we'd better talk some more with him," she suggested, looking about for Boise.

"We'll let him alone for a little bit," laughed Johnny. "We've started him to thinking about it, and I have that appointment with him at eight-thirty to-morrow morning. Boise does a day's work before lunch."

Later, in the bustle of preparing for dinner, Boise sat down by Constance.

"Are you still in favor of the Sage City and Salt Pool route for our new cut-off?" he asked with a smile as he inspected her delicately flushed cheeks and her bright eyes and her shining wavy hair.

"Really, I don't know very much about it," she modestly confessed, "but I should think that an all-level route would be much the best."

At the pier that night at twelve-thirty the party, on account of the lateness of the hour, very hurriedly dispersed. Johnny and Loring secured a taxi and, with Polly and Constance, headed for Polly's house where Constance had decided to spend the night.

As they crossed Seventh Avenue Johnny excitedly tapped on the glass in front of him and poking his head out through the other forward window, gave a sharp direction. The driver, a knobby-jawed and hairy-browed individual, turned and tore down toward the big new terminal station as fast as he could go.

"Gresham," explained Johnny briefly, peering keenly ahead.

"Well, what about him?" inquired Loring.

"He's jumping the town. I don't trust my detectives."

"Have you secured some proof?" eagerly inquired Loring.

"No, only evidence," laughed Johnny at his lawyer, and for the rest of that brief ride neither the breathless girls nor the concentrated men said anything. They only held tensely forward and helped hurry.

There were three taxis preceding them in the congested line which turned in at the terminal station, and as the vehicles began to slow down Johnny stood on the step.

"If I get in a mix-up you keep this taxi right round where it'll be handy," he directed, and ran ahead just as Gresham, as fastidious as ever, emerged at the entrance to the ticket lobby.

Gresham allowed a porter to take all of his hand luggage, with the exception of one small black bag which he carefully carried himself.

"I guess these are those," observed Johnny in a pleasant conversational tone of voice as he lifted the bag from Gresham's hand.

Gresham made a desperate grab for the bag, but Johnny gave him a shove with one strong forearm, opened the bag and, diving into it, felt a tight square bundle of papers near the bottom. Giving them one hasty glance he rushed back, closely followed by Gresham, to the taxi where his friends sat quivering with excitement.

"Hide these," he ordered. "Get out of here, quick!" he told the chauffeur. "Mr. Loring will tell you where to drive."

"They're hid all right," Polly assured him. "What are they?"

"Amalgamated Steel bonds representing Gresham's half of my million," rasped Johnny, throwing Gresham's weight off his arm. "Ask me the rest of it the next time we meet. Just now I have to see to getting this thief pinched."

"As your attorney I'll have to caution you, Johnny, that your action is entirely illegal," Loring confidentially stated.

"They're my bonds, bought with my money," asserted Johnny.

"I know, but it has to be proved," argued Loring. "Your only way to get possession of them is through the courts. Your present action has no better legal status than highway robbery."

"I got the bonds, didn't I?" demanded Johnny. "Now you move. Here comes a copper, and if he gets those bonds for evidence I won't see them again for months."

A policeman appeared in the exact center of the perspective, followed by a faithful emissary of the Ember Detective Agency.

"The bonds are no good to you just now unless Gresham assigns them," insisted Loring almost tearfully, and both Constance and Polly gave up in despair.

"That's right," agreed Johnny, glancing over his shoulder at the policeman and the indignant detective. Suddenly he pushed Gresham headlong into the midst of the party and jumped in after him. "Hold him, Loring!" he directed, and dismissed the stupefied Gresham from his mind.

With remarkable deftness he had extracted a single bill from his pocket and thrust it into the hand of the experienced chauffeur.

"Break the limit!" he tensely ordered.

"Where?" asked the chauffeur, whirling out of the line with a jerk.

"Any place," and the chauffeur, being a night worker and understanding his business, accepted that direction with grinning relish and left the depot policeman trying to remember the number of his machine.

As they went up the incline from the ticket-lobby door Johnny arranged the bewildered girls on the two little front seats, and wedged the cowed Gresham carefully in between himself and Loring on the back seat.

The chauffeur, knowing the only regular time-killing drive in the city, hit out for Central Park. Gresham was incapable of thought or action. As they crossed Forty-second Street Johnny touched his driver on the shoulder, and that handy criminal came to an immediate halt at the curb. Johnny opened the door. Gresham moved. Loring quickly clutched him by the knee. The chauffeur looked back.

"Leave it to me," he suggested in most friendly tones. "You don't need to change taxis."

"I'd feel more like a real sport if I hired two," Johnny argued, studying his man intently.

"I've got two numbers and I'll switch 'em," offered the assistant brigand.

"I think the police must know you by name," commented Johnny, "but I'll take a chance," and giving Polly's address he climbed back.

"Shall we hide the bonds?" whispered Polly as she prepared to alight at the Parsons home.

"Certainly not," replied Johnny. "I have to get them signed," and he pressed the hand of Constance with proper warmth as he helped her out.

Gresham made an attempt at that point to prove himself a man, but Loring restrained him from that absurd idea with one hand while he raised his hat with the other.

"Where next?" asked the driver huskily.

"The finest place for a kidnapping is Forty-second and Broadway," answered Johnny with his mind made up.

"I'll take you all the way," almost begged the chauffeur. "You're the only sport that ever handed me enough for a night ride, and I'd like to hand you good service."

"I don't know who else pays you," laughed Johnny, and his chauffeur, with a mighty respect for his fare, drove to Forty-second and Broadway, where Johnny paid him.

They walked to Johnny's apartments, and on their arrival Johnny produced the bonds, spreading them out on his table.

"About the first thing is to sign these," he suggested to Gresham.

That abused young man, who had been in the constant expectation of hearing himself yell for the police, but had been as constantly disappointed, had walked along like a gentleman; now, at last, he found his voice.

"This is an outrage!" he exclaimed.

"I know it," agreed Johnny. "It's even high-handed. Here's a fountain-pen."

"I refuse," maintained Gresham. "Why should I assign my own personal property to you?"

"Because your personal property is mine," Johnny informed him. "I don't owe you any explanation, Gresham, but I'll make one. You helped Birchard forge his power of attorney from the Wobbles brothers, and you were with him in taxi 23406 when he collected my million from the First National. You were seen again that night with Birchard on the Boston Post Road, and from then on Birchard dropped off the earth; but you didn't. You got Jacobs to buy you these bonds, and Jacobs is a piker. He confessed and begged for mercy. You're through."

Gresham held doggedly to the thought that never, under any circumstances, must he admit a criminal action; for such a thing was so far beneath him.

"I deny everything that you have said," he declared.

Johnny had a sudden frantic picture of this man touching the hand of Constance, and he leaned across the table until his face was quite close to Gresham's. The muscles in his jaws grew uncomfortably nervous.

"Did you ever hear of the third degree?" he inquired. "Well, I'm going to put you through it."

"The third degree?" faltered Gresham. "I don't quite understand what you mean."

"You don't?" replied Johnny. "It begins this way"—and the watchful Loring suddenly hung on Johnny's arm with his full weight.

"Don't!" implored Loring.

"I'm going to smash his head in!" husked Johnny, quivering with an anger to which he had not given way for years.

"Wait a minute!" pleaded Loring, pulling on him with all his strength. "Wait, I say! I want to help you, but you're in wrong. Listen to me"—and he drew his reluctant client away from the table. "I've no objections to your thrashing Gresham and I'd like to be your proxy, but you'd better put it off. If you compel Gresham by force to sign these bonds he can repudiate that action under protection of the court and it will work against you."

Johnny Gamble controlled himself with an effort.

"They're my bonds," he persisted with his thoughts, however, more on Constance than on business. "He'll sign them or I'll smash him."

Gresham, speaking above his panic of physical cowardice with a tremulous effort, interpolated himself into the argument.

"I'll sign," he promised with stiff lips, and tried to write his name on the cover of a magazine. The scrawl was so undecipherable that he rose from the table and walked up and down the room in acute distress, holding his right hand at the wrist and limbering it. "If I sign," he presently bargained as he came to the table, "I must be promised freedom from the distaste of a personal encounter."

Loring hastily complied, and Johnny, after having been prodded into a recognition of the true situation, agreed with a disgusted snarl.

Gresham, with nerves much restored and a smile beginning to appear upon his now oily features, carefully assigned each bond, and then, secure in Johnny's promise, which he accepted at the par value all men gave it, stood up and shook his finger warningly.

"A signature obtained under coercion is not worth the ink it took to scrawl it," he triumphantly declared, having taken his cue from Loring. "Any court in America will set aside this action."

"I know it," Johnny unexpectedly coincided. "I'm going to give you a chance at it," and grabbing his telephone he called up Central Police and asked for an officer to be sent to his rooms.

"Now, Loring, you disappear," directed Johnny briskly as he gathered up the bonds. "I may have to dismiss you as my lawyer, but as my friend you can hand these bonds to somebody who will lose them."

"As your lawyer I'd have to call you a blooming idiot," declared Loring, "but as your friend I don't think Gresham will raise any question about the bonds. They're yours, Johnny; but, nevertheless, I'll forget where they are by the time the police come."

Gresham had been struggling with an intolerable lump in his throat.

"Gamble!" he abjectly pleaded, "I've signed the bonds. I admit that they're yours. You're not going to have me arrested?"

Johnny turned on him with the sort of implacable enmity which expresses itself in almost breathless quietness.

"I'm going to send you to the penitentiary for a thousand years," he promised.



CHAPTER XXIV

IN WHICH JOHNNY DEMANDS SPOT CASH AT ONCE

Seven-thirty the next morning found Johnny Gamble listening, in awed curiosity, to an insistent telephone bell. Gradually it dawned on him that he must have left a call, and plodding into the bath-room he mechanically turned on the cold water, reflecting dully that this was a cruel world. Suddenly it came to him with a rush that this thirty-first of May was to be the busiest of his life! He had to have a million dollars before four o'clock!

At seven-forty-five he was out of his bath-tub. At eight he was gulping hot coffee. At eight-fifteen he was stepping out of the elevator with an apple core in his hand.

At the curb in front of his door he found a long gray torpedo touring car throbbing with impatience, and at the wheel sat a plump young lady in a vivid green bonnet and driving coat. In the tonneau sat a more slender young lady all in gray, except for the brown of her eyes and the pink of her cheeks and the red of her lips.

Johnny's Baltimore straw hat came off with a jerk.

"Out after the breakfast rolls?" he demanded as he shook hands with them quite gladly.

"No, indeed; hunting a job," responded Polly. "This machine and the services of its chauffeur and messenger girl are for rent to you only, for the day, at the price of a nice party when you get that million. We have to be in on the excitement."

"Hotel Midas," Johnny crisply directed, and jumped into the tonneau, whereupon the chauffeur touched one finger to her bonnet, and the machine leaped forward.

"You're lazy," chided Constance. "We've been waiting twenty minutes. We were afraid you might be gone, but they told us that you had not yet come down."

"If I'd known you were coming I'd have been at the curb before daybreak," grinned Johnny. "You're in some rush this morning."

"There must be some rushing if you have that million dollars by four o'clock," laughed Constance. "Polly and I want you to have it."

"You're right that I'll have to go some," he admitted.

"Excuse the chauffeur for interrupting your conversation," protested Polly, turning round and deftly missing a venturesome banana cart; "but you grabbed off half a million of it on a holiday."

"It was twelve-thirty this morning when we took Gresham," claimed Johnny. "This is a working-day."

"Hotel Midas," announced the chauffeur, pulling up to that flamboyant new hostelry with a flourish.

Johnny hurried in to the desk, where Mr. Boise had already left word that Mr. Gamble should be shown right up. He found that fatigue-proof old Westerner shining from his morning ablutions, as neat as a pin from head to foot, and smoking his after-breakfast cigar in a parlor which had not so much as a tidy displaced. His eyes twinkled the moment he saw Johnny.

"I suppose you still have a disinterested anxiety to have me adopt the Sage City and Salt Pool route?" he laughed.

"I'm still anxious about it," amended Johnny, refusing to smile at his own evasion of the disinterestedness. "I brought you a wad of reports and things to show you how good that territory is. You don't know what a rich pay-streak you'd open up in that part of the Sancho Hills Basin."

Mr. Boise laughed with keen enjoyment.

"I don't think I need to wade through that stuff, Johnny," he admitted, having picked up from Courtney the habit of calling young Gamble by his first name. "To tell you the truth, I sent a wireless telegram to my chief engineer yesterday afternoon, off Courtney's yacht when we connected with the Taft, and this morning I have a five-hundred-word night lettergram from him, telling me that after a thorough investigation of the situation he finds that the Sage City and the Lariat Center routes are so evenly balanced in advantage that a choice of them is really only a matter of sentiment."

Johnny paused awkwardly, stumped for the first time in his life.

"I don't know how to make that kind of an argument," he confessed, to the great enjoyment of Boise.

"It is rather difficult," admitted that solidly constructed railroad president; "particularly since I personally favor the Lariat Center route."

Johnny again felt very awkward.

"Can't we put this on some sort of a business basis?" he implored.

"I don't think so," returned Mr. Boise with a cheerful smile. "You probably couldn't influence me in the least; but that charming young lady who was with you yesterday afternoon—your sister or something, I believe, wasn't it—she might."

Johnny stiffened.

"Then we don't want it," he quietly decided, and took his hat.

"That's the stuff!" yelled Boise in delight. "You belong out West! Well, Johnny, I'm afraid you'll have to have it as a matter of sentiment, and partly on the charming young lady's account, whether you like it or not. Now what have you to say about it, you young bantam?"

"Much obliged," laughed Johnny, recovering from his huff in a hurry. "I thank you for both of us."

"Don't mention it," replied Boise easily, and chuckling in a way that did him good. "Give my very warmest regards to the young lady in question."

"Would you care to come down-stairs and give them to her yourself?" invited Johnny, a trifle ashamed that he had resented the quite evidently sincere admiration of Boise for both Constance and himself.

"So early in the morning?" laughed Boise, putting on his sombrero with alacrity. "It must be serious," and, clapping Johnny heartily on the shoulder with a hand which in its lightest touch came down with the force of a mallet, he led the way to the elevator.

At the curb Mr. Boise, who was also confronting a busy day, delighted both the girls and Johnny by the sort of well-wishes that a real man can make people believe, and when they drove away Constance was blushing and Polly was actually threatening to adopt him.

The next stop was at Collaton's, where Johnny bought from that nonchalantly pleased young man his interest in the Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company for five thousand dollars, A check for which amount he borrowed from Polly while Collaton was signing the transfer.

Next he went to the offices of the Western Developing Company, and the president of that extensive concern waved him away with both hands.

"If you've come about that Sancho Hills Basin land of yours, talk to me about it in a theater lobby sometime," Washburn warned Johnny in advance. "We discuss nothing but real business up here."

"I'll bet you five thousand acres of the land that this is real business," Johnny offered. "The S. W. & P. has just secured control of the B. F. & N. W., and intends to run the main line to Puget Sound right square through the middle of my land. Now are you busy?"

"Sit down and have a cigar," invited Washburn, and slammed a call-bell. "Billy," he told a boy, "if Mr. Rothberg comes in on that appointment tell him I'll see him in a few minutes. Now, Johnny, how do I know that the S. W. & P. will actually build that connecting link through your land?"

"Ask Boise," directed Johnny confidently. "He's at the Hotel Midas, and he has appointments in his room for the most of the morning."

"Has that grasping old monopolist gumshoed into town again?" inquired Washburn, and promptly ordered his secretary to get Boise on the telephone. "How much do you want for that land?" he asked while he waited.

"Half a million dollars," stated Johnny. "No, I mean five hundred and ten thousand," he hastily corrected, remembering his five-thousand-dollar debt to Polly, and planning a five-thousand-dollar betrothal blow-out that should be a function worth while.

"Half a million's a lot of money," Washburn soberly objected.

"I said half a million and ten thousand, spot cash and to-day," Johnny carefully corrected.

"You're joking."

"Am I smiling?" demanded Johnny. "Washburn, if I can't get that odd ten thousand I'm in no hurry to sell."

Washburn's bell rang, but he went into the next room to talk to Boise. He came back resigned.

"We'll need a few days for the formalities," he suggested.

"You don't need a minute," denied Johnny. "You looked up the title weeks ago, and you know it's all right. The formalities can be concluded in thirty minutes if you'll send your attorney down with me."

"But what's the rush?" demanded Washburn, averse to paying out cash with this speed.

"I want the money," explained Johnny.

"All right," gave in Washburn. "You may see Jackson at two o'clock and wind up the business. He'll hand you a check."

"For five hundred and ten thousand?" inquired Johnny with proper caution.

"For five hundred and ten thousand," repeated Washburn. "It's a fool-sounding amount, but Boise said that if I wouldn't pay it he would."

"May I speak to Boise a minute?" asked Johnny.

"This deal's closed," hastily cautioned Washburn with his hand on the telephone.

"Of course it's closed," acknowledged Johnny. "I want to invite Boise to a party."



CHAPTER XXV

IN WHICH JOHNNY KEEPS ON DOING BUSINESS TILL THE CLOCK STRIKES FOUR

The hired auto had plenty to do. It carried Johnny to court, where he made a deposition against Gresham; it carried him to the office of the Amalgamated Steel Company, where he had the bonds that Gresham had transferred to him registered in his own name; it carried him to the appointment with Washburn's lawyer, who destroyed a full hour and a half of palpitating time; and it carried all of them to Loring's office, into which they burst triumphantly at twenty minutes of four.

At that hour Loring's office was crowded with loafers, the same being Colonel Bouncer, Morton Washer, Joe Close, Ben Courtney, Val Russel and Bruce Townley.

"This being a sporting event of some note, I gathered up a nice little bunch of sports to see the finish," explained Val Russel with a graceful bow. "Loring passed me the word that he expected you to nose under the wire in record time. You must show us the million dollars you were to have by four P. M., on Wednesday, May thirty-first."

"I don't have to flash it for twenty minutes," claimed Johnny happily. "At that hour I will show you a certificate of deposit on Joe Close's bank for half a million in bonds, and a sure-enough check for five hundred and ten thousand dollars."

"No fair!" objected Val. "You were to have only an even million, and you've shot ten thousand over the mark."

"I owe Polly five thousand," explained Johnny as he hung his hat on a hook and pushed back his sleeves, "and I provided for the other five thousand in order to give a party. May I wash my face while I'm waiting for the time to be up?"

Courtney noticed that Constance had moved over toward the rather inadequately screened basin in the corner in unconscious accompaniment of Johnny.

"We'll excuse you if you'll answer one question," Courtney ventured with twinkling eyes. "It has been generally understood among your friends that when you really secured your million dollars—"

"That will do," interrupted Polly Parsons. "You interfered once before with Johnny's love affairs—Well, I'm not giving anything away!" she hotly retorted to a blazing glance from Constance.

The door opened and a boy brought in a package for Mr. Gamble. Loring, guessing the contents from its size, tore off the wrapper.

"Collaton sticks, anyhow, Johnny," he called. "Here are the lost books."

"Cheap at half the price," laughed Johnny as he splashed in the water. "By the way, Loring, you never did tell me how you steered off that first bogus attachment for fifteen thousand."

Constance and Loring looked at each other in dismay.

"I'll bring in a bill for that after four o'clock," promised Loring, laughing as lightly as he could.

"After four," repeated Johnny, coming from behind the screen with a towel in his hands. "You didn't pay it, did you?"

"That's an entirely separate deal," evaded Loring.

"Where did you get the money?" demanded Johnny, and scrutinizing the confused face of Constance, he knew.

Johnny smiled gratefully at her and patted her on the shoulder as he walked quietly behind the screen. Great Scott! He glanced over the screen at the clock. Where could he make ten thousand dollars in fifteen minutes? He had to have that million and it must be clear! He reached for a comb with one hand and for his hat with the other.

Winnie and Sammy Chirp rushed into the office—Winnie in a bewildering new outfit of pure white, beaming all over with importance, and Sammy smiling as he had never smiled before.

"Where on earth have you been?" demanded Polly. "I've been telephoning for you all day."

"Well," explained Winnie volubly, "I took a notion to marry Sammy. I just thought that if I mentioned it to you you'd want me to wait a while, and when it did happen it would be a regular fussy affair."

"Honestly, child, I don't know whether to scold you or kiss you," broke in Polly. "Sammy, come here."

Sammy came, not only obediently but humbly, though he never ceased to smile; and he looked her squarely in the eyes.

Polly surveyed him long and earnestly.

"I guess it's the best thing that could have happened to both of you, but I'll have a dreadful time looking after such a pair!"

"I'll look after my husband myself, if you please!" indignantly protested Winnie.

Everybody laughed, and Polly started the popular ceremony of kissing the bride.

Johnny Gamble came thoughtfully from behind the screen. He had not heard the commotion, nor was he even now aware that Winnie and Sammy had been added to the party. He had a broken comb in his hand.

"Bruce," said he, looking steadfastly at the comb, "did you ever feel the need of a comb of your own in a public wash room?"

"I've sent a boy six blocks to buy one," responded Bruce with a surge of recurrent indignation.

"It's the curse of the nation," Val earnestly assured him. "You are ready for the theater. You have fifteen minutes to spare. You drop into a gilded palace of crime to drink a highball. In your earnestness you muss your hair. You retire to primp. A comb hangs before you, with one serviceable tooth. A brush with eight bristles hangs by its side. You smooth your hair with your towel and go away saddened for ever!"

"The trouble is," said Colonel Bouncer, "that every man thinks he's going to carry a neat little pocket-comb in a neat little case, and he buys dozens of them; but he never has one with him."

"Thanks," acknowledged Johnny. "Now suppose you could step into any barber shop, theater, hotel, saloon or depot wash room, drop a nickel in a slot and take out a nice papier-mache comb, paraffined and medicated and sealed in an oiled-paper wrapper. Would you do it?"

"Just as fast as I could push the button," agreed Bruce with enthusiasm.

"Well, I've just invented that comb," explained Johnny, smiling. "Do you think there would be a good business in manufacturing it?"

Courtney, who had been considering the matter gravely, now nodded his head emphatically.

"There's a handsome fortune in it," he declared. "It is one of those little things of which there are enormous quantities used and thrown away each day. If you want to organize a company to put it on the market, Johnny, I'll take any amount of stock you think proper—not only for the investment, but for the pure philanthropy of it."

"Also for the pure selfishness of it," laughed Joe Close. "Courtney wants to be sure to find a private comb in every public wash room."

"When you get your factory going I wish you'd send a salesman to my head supply man," requested Mort Washer. "I'll buy them by the ton, and every guest who comes into one of my hotels will find a fresh comb in an aseptic wrapper by the side of his individual soap."

"That will be up to Bruce," Johnny informed him. "Bruce intends to manufacture this device at his papier-mache factory."

"Thanks," acknowledged Bruce. "I hadn't contemplated enlarging the factory, but I see I shall need to."

"Johnny isn't kidding, Bruce," Val shrewdly warned him.

"Neither am I," maintained Bruce stoutly. "I'll have that comb on the market so quickly that you can almost afford to wait for it. Royalty, Johnny?"

"No," denied Johnny promptly. "I'll sell it to you outright for ten thousand dollars, me to sign any sort of papers you need and you to pay the patent lawyer."

"I'd be robbing you," protested Bruce. "I should think you'd want to retain an interest in the manufacture, or at least a royalty. There'd be a lot more money in it for you."

"Wait just a minute," directed Loring, sitting down at his typewriting machine from which the neat operator had fled at the very beginning of the social invasion.

For the next two or three minutes the rapidfire click of the keys under Loring's practiced fingers drowned all other sound, and then he jerked off a paper.

"Now, Johnny, you sign this," he ordered. "It is a rather legal transfer, in line with your other dubious operations of the day, of all your rights in the Johnny Gamble comb to one Bruce Townley, here present. Bruce, give Johnny your check for the ten thousand dollars."

"All right, if you fellows are bound to have it that way," agreed Bruce. "I haven't a check-book with me, Johnny, but I'll send it up to you from the office to-morrow."

"But, Bruce, that won't do!" hastily urged Constance. "He must have the check right now. Don't you see he only has a million and ten thousand dollars? He owes Polly five thousand and me fifteen thousand, and if you give him ten thousand dollars for his invention he'll have a million and how much? I'm all mixed up! But I do know this: that he'll have his million dollars left exactly to the cent!"

"I—I see," stuttered Bruce in a fever of anxiety to help Johnny achieve his million in the specified time. "I—I'm sorry I haven't my check-book," and he looked about him hopelessly.

Just in front of his chest was suspended a check, already made out in favor of Johnny Gamble, in the amount of ten thousand dollars, properly dated and lacking only Bruce's signature. It was smiling Sammy Chirp who had been quietly thoughtful enough to remember that he and Bruce did business at the same bank.

"The nation is saved!" cheered Val Russel as Bruce dropped down at Loring's desk. Johnny was already busy writing.

"Do hurry!" urged Constance. "It's two minutes of four!"

Johnny jumped up with two checks on the First National Bank and passed one to Constance and one to Polly.

"Tough luck!" suddenly commented Val Russel. "It just occurs to me that our friend Johnny will have to break into his million to pay for his blow-out."

"I'm glad of it," snapped Morton Washer. "He took an eighth of that million out of my pocket. He can afford to give a dinner, with salted almonds and real imported champagne at every plate."

"And a glass-scratching diamond souvenir from the million-dollar bride," added Polly with a wicked glance at Constance.

"Are we positive that he has won a bride?" demanded Courtney, gathering courage from the fact that Polly was not crushed.

"I don't know myself," boasted Johnny with an assumption of masculine masterfulness which he knew he could never maintain. "Will you marry me, Constance?"

"I decline to discuss that in public," declared Constance with well-feigned haughtiness.

Johnny kissed her, anyhow, and the mob cheered.

"Listen!" ordered Constance.

The little clock above Loring's desk struck four.

THE END