Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1917-10-26
CHAPTER xvI-tcontInusd.,


detractors in the business field. Those
whose affairs brought then. In contact
with him found man suddenly grown
wears older and harder, boody and
harshly dictatorial, not to say quar-
relsome; a man who seemed to have
parted, In the short space of a single
night, with all of the humanizing affa-
ollities which he had shown to such
marked degree in the recognizing and
refnancing of the irrigation project.
"We've got our young Napoleon of
anance on the toboggan slide, at last"
was the way in which Mr.. Crawford
stanton phrased it for the bejeweled
lady at their luncheon in the Hophra
cafe, "Kinzie is about to throw him
over, and all this talk about botch-
work on the dam is getting his goat.
They're telling 1t around town this
morning that you can't get near him
without risking fight. Old Man Back
us went up to his Office IN behalf of
a bunch of the scared stockholders,
and Smith abused him first and then
threw him out bodily-hurt him pretty
savagely, they say"
The large lady's accurately penciled
eyebrows went up in mild surprise.
bad temper?" she queried.
bad temper, or an acute attack of
'=attleitis;' you can take your choice.
suppose he hasn't, by any chance,
Quarreled with Miss Richlander over
night has heT'
70 IoAx a1,noI- hov
Il should say not. They were at lunch
con together In the ladies' ordinary as
came down a few minutes ago."
Thus the partner of Crawford Stan
toms joys and sorrows. But an invis-
ible onlooker in the small dining room
above-stairs might have drawn other
conclusions. Smith and the daughter
of the Lawrenceville magnate had a
small table to themselves, and if the
talk were not precisely quarrelsome,
it leaned that way at times.
II have never seen you quite so bru-
tai and impossible as you are today.
Montague. You don't seem like the
same man. Are you going to reconsider
and take me out to the Baldwin ranch
this afternoon"
"And let you parade me there as
your latest acquisition ?-never in this
worldi"
More brutality. Positively you are
getting me into a frame of mind in
which Tucker Jibbey will seem like a
blessed relief. Whatever do you sup
pose has become of TuckerY
How should known
eff he had come in last night, and
you had met him-as asked you to
in any such heavenly temper as you
are INDUCING now, 1 might tb:2k you
had murdered him.
1t was doubtless by sheer accident
that Smith, reaching at the moment
for the salad oil, overturned his water
glass. But the small accident by no
means accounted for the sudden gray
ing of his face under the TimanyOni
wind tan-for that or for the shaking
hands with which he seconded the wait
er's anxious efforts TO repair the dam
age. When they we're alone again, the
mOmentary trep:1ation had given mace
to a renewed hardness that lent
biting rasp to his voice.
'Kinzie, the suspicious old banker
that I've been telling you about, ~ de-
termined to run me down." he said,
changing the subject abruptly. "Pve
got it pretty straight that he is plan
ming to send one of his clegks to the
Topaz district to try and find your IA
Their. In the hope that he will tell what
he knows about me-"
Does this Mr.. Kinzie know where
father is to be found?"
He doesn't; that's the only hitch"
Miss Verda's smile across the little
table was level-eyed.
Il could be lots of help to you, Mon
tagus In this fight you are making. If
you'd only let me-" she suggested.
"Tll fight for my own hand" was the
grating rej0inder. 81 can assure you,
right now, that Kinzie's messenger will
never reach your father-alive."
OOH" shuddered the beauty, with
little lift of the rounded shoulders.
How utterly and hOpelessly primitive!
Let r. show you much simpler alter
native. I have map of the mining
district, you know. Father left it with
me--in case 1 should want to commu-
nicate with him."
Smith looked up with smile when
was mere barring of the teeth.
You wouldn't get in a mans way
with any fine-spun theories of the ulti-
mate right and wrong, would you? You
wouldn't say that the only great man
is the man who loves his fellow men,
and all that?"
Again the handsome shoulders were
1tted, this time in cool scOrn.
Are you quoting the little ranch per-
sonF" she inquired. Then she answered