many years. But a result had come--and it was rich. How he had managed an
education he could hardly see himself; only the major had helped. Not
much, but just enough to make it possible. And David had always stood by.

Kildare's fortune had come from some almost forgotten lumber lands that
his father had failed to heave into the Confederate maelstrom. Perhaps it
had come a little soon for the very best upbuilding of the character of
David Kildare, but he had stood shoulder to shoulder with them all in the
fight for the establishment of the new order of things and his generosity
with himself and his wealth had been superb. The delight with which he
made a gift of himself to any cause whatsoever, rather tended to blight
the prospects of what might have been a brilliant career at law. With his
backing Hobson Capers had opened the cotton mills on a margin of no
capital and much grit. Then Tom Cantrell had begun stock manipulations
on a few blocks of gas and water, which his mother and Andrew had put up
the money to buy--and nerve.

It was good to think of them all now in the perspective of the then. Were
there any people on earth who could swing the pendulum like those scions
of the wilderness cavaliers and do it with such dignity? He was tasting
an aftermath and he found it sweet--only the bitterness that had killed
his mother before he was ten. And across the street sat the daughter of
the man who had pressed the cup to her lips--with her father's millions
and her mother's purple eyes.

He dropped his hand on his manuscript and began to write feverishly. Then
in a moment he paused. The Panama campfire, beside which he had written
his first play, that was running in New York now, rose in a vision. Was
it any wonder that the managers had jumped at the chance to produce the
first drama from the country's newly acquired jungle? The lines had been