[Ill.u.s.tration: "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"]

There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be d.a.m.ned!"

With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted up from the station through the alley--thereby doing away with the necessity of cluttering up the store with a debris of packing. His primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent; there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.

"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck indoors before nightfall, you know----"

But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as that. He put himself in front of Duncan.

"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through--I can't allow you----"

"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say anything more. It's over and done with."

"But you mustn't--I'll turn over the store to you, if----"

"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape Graham's grat.i.tude. "No--don't! Please don't do that!"

"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness-- unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope--"you'll consider a partnership----"

"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.

"That's the way to do it--a partnership. No, please don't say any more about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes: if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that everything's----"

"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught and held it between both his own. "If--if fate--or something hadn't brought you here to-day--I don't know what would've happened to Betty and me. ..."

"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about it."

Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much----"

"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash: "nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."

"To me it's meant everything. I--I only hope I'll be able to repay you some day. G.o.d bless you, my boy, G.o.d bless you!"

He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly-- perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.

Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million dollars."

Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations, representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to his pocket.

"Harry," he observed--"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a year!...

"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"

XIII

THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM

It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of his labours.

She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment in her att.i.tude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she was trying to a.n.a.lyse him, weighing him in the scales of her impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.

In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun, cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread area of wreckage and destruction.

"Pretty good work for a York dude--not?" he laughed.

There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she said evenly.

He shot her a curious glance. "_Ouch!_" he said thoughtfully.

"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted inside."

"Somebody wants to see _me?_" he demanded of her retreating back.

"Yes."

"But who--?"

"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the house.

"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly: "Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like this! I, a business man!"

Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his coat, he made for the store, b.u.t.toning his collar and knotting his tie on the way.

He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently controlled money, to some vague extent.

"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to meet Nat.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"

"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to meet you."

"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"

"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of Graham's?"

"Not exactly; the firm took it up."

Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"

"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."

"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm, then; and here," he added, producing the doc.u.ment in question, "is Sam's note."