Two very different games they had been, but neither had been a small one. Dirck had started in with a fortune to "do" the world--the whole world, nothing else would suit him. He had been all over the globe. He had lived among all manner of peoples. He had ridden everything ridable, shot everything shootable, climbed everything climbable, and satisfied himself, as he said, that the world was too small for any particular use. At the end of his travels he had a little of his fortune left, a vast amount of experience, the constitution of a red Indian, and a vocabulary so vast and so peculiar that it stunned and fascinated the stranger. Halford was a New York lawyer, gray, clean-shaven, and sharp of feature. His "game" had made him famous and might have made him wealthy, but he cared neither for fame nor wealth. For twenty years he had fought a host of great corporations to establish one single point of law. His antagonists had vainly tried to bribe him, and as vainly to bully him. He had been assaulted, his life had been threatened, and altogether, as he admitted, the game had been lively enough to keep him interested; but having once won the game he tired of that style of play altogether. He picked out a small but choice practice which permitted him to work or be idle pretty much as the fancy took him. These were two odd chums to meet in a small suburban town, there to lead quiet and uneventful lives, and yet they were the two most contented men in the place. [Illustration] Halford was getting into his clothes, but really with a speed and precision which got the job over before his impetuous next-door neighbor had got one leg of his riding-breeches on. Mrs. Halford sat up in bed and expressed her feeling to her husband, who had never been known to express his. "Oh, Jack," she said, "isn't it awful? Would you ever have thought of such a thing! They must have been awfully careless! Oh, Jack, you will find him, won't you? Jack, if such a thing happened to one of our children I should go wild; I'll never get over it myself if he isn't found. Oh, you don't know how thankful I am that we didn't lose our Richard that way! Oh, Jack, dear, isn't it too horrible for anything!" Jack simply responded, with no trace of emotion in his voice: "It's the hell!" And yet in those three words Jack Halford expressed, in his own way, quite as much as his wife had expressed in hers. More, even, for there was a grim promise in his tone that comforted her heart. Mrs. Halford's feelings being expressed and in some measure relieved, she promptly became practical. "I'll fill your flask, of course, dear. Brandy, I suppose? And what shall we women take up to the Gun Club besides blankets and clean clothes?" Mrs. Halford's husband always thought before he spoke, and she was not at all surprised that he filled his tobacco-pouch before he answered. When he did speak he knew what he had to say.