gives it to him, and Bascom's the railrud tool." Suddenly Zeb raised
himself in bed. "Hev' they be'n tamperin' with you?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Austen, dispassionately. He had hardly heard what Zeb had
said; his mind had been going onward. "Yes. They sent me an annual pass,
and I took it back."

Zeb Meader did not speak for a few moments.

"I guess I was a little hasty, Austen," he said at length.

"I might have known you wouldn't sell out. If you're' willin' to take the
risk, you tell 'em ten thousand dollars wouldn't tempt me."

"All right, Zeb," said Austen.

He left the hospital and struck out across the country towards the slopes
of Sawanec, climbed them, and stood bareheaded in the evening light,
gazing over the still, wide valley northward to the wooded ridges where
Leith and Fairview lay hidden. He had come to the parting of the ways of
life, and while he did not hesitate to choose his path, a Vane
inheritance, though not dominant, could not fail at such a juncture to
point out the pleasantness of conformity. Austen's affection for Hilary
Vane was real; the loneliness of the elder man appealed to the son, who
knew that his father loved him in his own way. He dreaded the wrench
there.

And nature, persuasive in that quarter, was not to be stilled in a field
more completely her own. The memory and suppliance of a minute will
scarce suffice one of Austen's temperament for a lifetime; and his eyes,