through snowy tunnels or white spring thickets like a white fox,
hungrily intent upon the secrets of nature.

There was a deep mystery in this to the village people. They could
not fathom the reason for a man's haunting wild places like a wild
animal unless he hunted and trapped like the Hautville sons. They
were suspicious of dark motives, upon which they exercised their
imaginations.

Lot Gordon's talk, moreover, was an enigma to them. He was no
favorite, and only his goodly property tempered his ill repute.
People could not help identifying him, in a measure, with his noble
old house, with the stately pillared portico, with his silver-plate
and damask and mahogany, which his great-grandfather had brought from
the old country, with his fine fields and his money in the bank. He
held, moreover, a large mortgage on the house opposite, where Burr
Gordon lived with his mother. Burr's father and Lot's, although sons
of one shrewd father, had been of very different financial abilities.
Lot's father kept his property intact, never wasting, but adding from
others' waste. Burr's plunged into speculation, built a new house,
for which he could not pay, married a wife who was not thrifty, and
when his father died had anticipated the larger portion of his
birthright. So Lot's father succeeded to nearly all the family
estates, and in time absorbed the rest. Lot, at his father's death,
had inherited the mortgage upon the estate of Burr and his mother.
Burr's father had died some time before. Lot was rumored to be
harder, in the matter of exacting heavy interest, than his father had
been. It was said that Burr was far behind in his payments, and that
Lot would foreclose. Burr had a better head than his father's, but he
had terrible odds against him. There was only one chance for his