influence public opinion; and generally advance the cause of the System
for the Regeneration of the Arctic Regions.

I tell the story rather flippantly, because I heard it from Callan, and
because it was impossible to take him seriously. Besides, I was not very
much interested in the thing itself. But it did interest me to see how
deftly she pumped him--squeezed him dry.

I was even a little alarmed for poor old Cal. After all, the man had
done me a service; had got me a job. As for her, she struck me as a
potentially dangerous person. One couldn't tell, she might be some
adventuress, or if not that, a speculator who would damage Cal's little
schemes. I put it to her plainly afterward; and quarrelled with her as
well as I could. I drove her down to the station. Callan must have been
distinctly impressed or he would never have had out his trap for her.

"You know," I said to her, "I won't have you play tricks with
Callan--not while you're using my name. It's very much at your service
as far as I'm concerned--but, confound it, if you're going to injure him
I shall have to show you up--to tell him."

"You couldn't, you know," she said, perfectly calmly, "you've let
yourself in for it. He wouldn't feel pleased with you for letting it go
as far as it has. You'd lose your job, and you're going to live, you
know--you're going to live...."

I was taken aback by this veiled threat in the midst of the pleasantry.
It wasn't fair play--not at all fair play. I recovered some of my old
alarm, remembered that she really was a dangerous person; that ...