The train had rushed on past Poughkeepsie, and the parade music from West Point floated sweetly across the cool river as the train halted at Garrison’s for a few moments, before he had morosely reviewed all the dismal events which brought him a lonely stranger back to New York. Erastus Vreeland, a lawyer of no mean accomplishment, had destined his only son for the bar. The elder Vreeland was a human spider, who had finally gravitated downward into the exercise of only the meaner craft of his much-abused profession. For long years, in his little office on William Street he had legally carried on the intrigues of a daring band of clients who rightly should have ornamented the Academy of Belles-Lettres of New York at Sing Sing. During the life of his hoodwinked wife, Vreeland _père_ led a double existence of more or less moral turpitude, and, at last, a shameless and successful coup of rascality aroused the ire of a great financial company. It was his “notice to quit,” and after the death of his wife, Erastus Vreeland “swung round the distant circle,” often followed by the _déclassé_ lawyer. Omaha, Leadville, Salt Lake, Los Angeles, and other Western cities finally knew his fox-like cunning and gradually weakening grip. A political affray, the result of a heated election in Montana, had been the occasion of the elder Vreeland’s sudden taking off. And so, the man who had never learned the homely adage that “corruption wins not more than honesty,” slept far away from his fathers on the rocky hillsides of Helena, in wild Montana. It was a miserable summation of failures. The hegira of the father had left the son stranded in life at the start upon his finishing the four years at Princeton which had made him an expert in all the manly arts save any definite plan of money-getting. A still self-deceiving man, Erastus Vreeland had hopefully invited his son to share the suggested exile, and thus, the plan of the law course for the junior was perforce abandoned. It had not been long till father and son drifted coldly apart. The mean, shabby moral nature of the demoralized elder could not long impose upon the quick-witted youth. The slights of the bench, the slurs of the bar, the wasp-like thrusts of a bold frontier press, all proved that the “trail of the serpent” followed on after the talented weakling whose professional honor was never proof against gold or gain secured from either side. And so, with only a hypocritical pretense of a certain lingering friendly feeling, the two men had finally parted, dividing a few hundred dollars which were the remains of a retainer in a case, which deftly went wrong on its trial, sold out, to the benefit of lawyer Vreeland’s adversary. Then came the bloody finale—and, and—exit Vreeland _pater_! Harold Vreeland sighed in disgust as he recalled the five lost years of his golden youthful promise.