When Harriet Trennor called the Trennor brothers “the men of her family,” she made the most of what was a second cousinship. It was even the case that she was not on very good terms with those go-ahead young gentlemen; for the Trennors, in spite of their prosperity, had never, as she expressed it, “done anything” for her. It had been for the sake of her old father that they had bestirred themselves sufficiently to recommend Harriet for the post of assistant superintendent of the Girls’ College of Valdivia. But after providing her with an opportunity to leave their common birthplace in St. Joseph, Missouri, the Trennors and their respective wives had, in point of fact, neglected Miss Harriet to such a degree, that there would be a certain magnificence in her heaping coals of fire on their heads. She, the poor relation, whom they had so little regarded, would put it in the way of men merely well-off to become millionaires. They would learn her worth at last! Yes, yes, Nathaniel must keep the great secret close, till the Trennors (who were in New York on their yearly business trip) should have returned. But the affairs of the brothers took them to Mexico, and their home coming was further delayed. While they tarried acute pneumonia appeared upon the Rock Hill scene, and carried off John Galbraith. Little part in Mar’s grief at the loss of his best-loved friend was played by the thought that now he could not count upon his “backing.” Galbraith took with him out of the world something that to a man of Mar’s temperament meant more. And at that time he looked upon himself as possessor of a secret that any capitalist in the country would hold himself lucky to share. It was not till the return of his wife’s cousins that he found there could be exceptions to this foregone conclusion. As enterprising dabblers in real estate and mining, and with the Palmas Valley Bank behind them, the Trennor brothers were constantly being approached by people with schemes for making millions. Such persons, though almost invariably as poor as Mar, were not often, the Trennor brothers agreed, ready with propositions so fantastic. Alaska was in those days further away from men’s imaginations than Patagonia. The few people who had anything to say about the newly acquired territory, used it only as a club to belabor the then secretary of state. What had he been thinking of to advise his foolish country to pay seven millions for the barren rocks and worthless ice-fields that astute Russia, after one hundred and twenty-six years’ attempt at occupation, was so ready to abandon! “Worthless!” retorted Secretary Seward’s friends. “Why, the Seal Islands alone—” “Yes, yes, the Seal Islands _are_ alone on the credit side of the transaction. Seward gave those seven millions for the two little Pribyloffs, and the value of Alaska may be gaged by the fact that it was just thrown in.”