Caleb's money to make folks out of her." He mellowed and smiled in a pause, then took up his monologue: "Ye can read her and all the likes of her as an open book. She's the kind that believes all she needs to move in high society is to know how to make a boiled salad dressing and veal loaf. Poor, poor Vashti! But," he aroused himself and said, "this won't do. We must take this up in the lodge. How old will Vashti be by now, Archimedes? Only twenty-eight or so? Man," cried the old Colonel, earnestly, "Man, if I was the Providence Boyce Kilworth is, which Heaven forbid, I'd make a general order in Heaven, for the angels never to set down anything against anyone under thirty." After pondering a moment over his hypothetical ukase he amended it," and over fifty; we have only twenty responsible years and I'm not quite sure of them!"

It was late when the Colonel ambled into the street and started homeward. He deliberately missed the first car that passed him, and when the east-bound train was whistling in the yards, he strolled aimlessly down to the station, two blocks out of his way, to stretch his legs, and to see what

he might see. And there, dropping off the rear Pullman, before the porter had put down his box, was Caleb Hale, natty, dapper - but as worn and lined as a man of forty dare be. When the two men had found a carriage, and the Colonel had made the driver turn the top down so that they could enjoy the moonlight and the Colonel could show Hale how the town had grown, they got in and for the fourth time the old man exclaimed: "Well, well, well-and it's you!" Then he turned to Hale and quizzed: "And why did you come home? - does the family know you're comin' to-night- on this train?"

"No," answered Hale, "this train is a surprise; they know I'm coming to-day or to-morrow. And, Colonel," Hale went on, putting a hand on the elder man's bony, knee, "I'm coming home because the game has got too strong. It passed my limit. Oh, I've been fighting, Colonel - fighting for all these long months- watching the price. of that mine rise and rise; and every time the price jumped I caught myself wanting to take the price and sit in the game. But-" he laughed "Steady-boy

self-deprecatingly, "I said:

you've beaten it this far, stay with it,' and I did.

Finally I felt strong enough to sell. So I sold, and it was too much for me this last month since the sale, and I had to come!"

"Had to come?" echoed the Colonel. "Why, Cale, you don't mean "

Then Hale broke out: "I tell you, Colonel, a place where money - raw, stinking, wet, green, uncured money is god, comes nearer to hell than any other place on this planet.'

"Women, Caleb?" asked the old man softly. Caleb Hale smiled a curious reflective smile and shook his head: "No, Colonel - the woman proposition doesn't get me now. I've played that hand out! Seven or eight years ago the women might have got me - along with the rest." He stopped and lifted his face to the Colonel and said gently: "But there's my Dick — my little boy- Nope, Colonel - it wasn't the woman proposition." He broke out suddenly: "It was the money; the devil — my own personal devil — the old one, who came up holding out the old lure to bet, to speculate to play the big mining game. And he sugar-coated it, slimed it all over with respectability - tempted me to be big-rich- to Be Somebody. And I actually got to thinking

how fine it would be to come home with more money than Boyce -to be more respectable than Boyce - and then I came to myself ran like Joseph from Mrs. Potiphar - and here I am!"

and ran

"But your money, Cale?" inquired the Colonel cautiously. "What are you going to do with -"

"I've already done with it," cut in Hale. And to the elder man's blank look Hale replied: "I've put it where it will do the most good!"

The Colonel nodded unsatisfied, and Hale repeated, stubbornly, as one who had decided upon a formula: "I tell you I've done with it. I've put it where it will do the most good."

The Colonel saw that Hale had closed the door into that inquiry, and the two rode in an embarrassed silence for a moment, then Hale went

on:

"You go tell Brother Boyce, what I've told you, and get it to Charley Herrington; they've both wired me and written to me and I'm on

to both of 'em. I've put that money where it will do the most good, and I'm going to rent a little piece of a store and open a cigar stand, and buy a place and have a garden."

Colonel," the town's prepared to make a millionaire out of you - you can't do any such thing as that -why

"Nevertheless, Colonel - that's my game."

Why, Cale, the town will laugh — you'd be a byword and a joke for—"

"Well let 'em laugh, and be damned to 'em. It's my business how I make my living—if it's honest!"

As they rode past the gorgeous peaked and towered mansion of the Kilworths, Caleb Hale asked: "How is Brother Boyce coming on?"

"Just now," answered the Colonel, "your distinguished step-brother is making a mint of money out of his new tin-mill, and putting it right back in improvements and additions. But it's a gold mine. Boyce has the golden touch," the Colonel continued. "He has the leprosy of easy success!" The real scrap heap of life, Cale, is made up of those fragile souls, whom the Lord throws out because they will not stand the thundering blows of fate, that are needed to make a real soul!"

"So that's your theory of life?" asked Hale. "Thundering blows?"