"You thought about right, too," said Rutherford, "for I'm awfully careless about anything of that kind, always putting my foot in it, you know; and I don't see how you ever could come out here, a perfect stranger, and carry everything along as smoothly as you have. Well, I remember I was awfully mixed there on the train, when you told me you had come out here to work for that company, for I thought all the time that if you were not a gentleman, then I never saw one; and it's lucky I did have sense enough to think of that, or I might have made a confounded chump of myself." "You would have cut me, would you?" asked Houston, laughing, "I was looking out for that, and would have considered it a rich joke if you had." "Rather too rich, I should say," said Rutherford, coloring. "Mort has always ridiculed me for that sort of thing, and told me I'd make a precious fool of myself some day; I don't intend to be snobbish, though he says I am, but that's just my way somehow, unless I happen to like a person. Mort is different from me; he will get along with all sorts of people, you know, but I never could." "You are all right," answered Houston, "you are a little conscious of your blue blood now and then, but as you grow older you will think less about that, and you have as good a heart as Morton, when a person is fortunate enough to find it." "Say," said Rutherford, suddenly, "if you and Mort were class mates, you must have known Van Dorn." "Certainly," said Houston, smilingly watching the blue coils of smoke from his cigar, "and when I first saw him with the Winters party, I knew my little game was up, unless I got my work in very expeditiously," and he described the little pantomime which took place in the office shortly after Van Dorn's arrival, much to the amusement of Rutherford, who exclaimed: "Great Scott! but you fellows played that game well, no one ever would have dreamed that you had known each other." Houston then told of the plan for Van Dorn's coming in a few weeks, and later, for the arrival of Mr. Cameron with Lindlay. "Oh," Rutherford exclaimed, "now I see why Mort is so anxious to get here at just about a certain time; he knows all about this, and wants to be in at the death himself; well, that suits me exactly. But say, old fellow, isn't this going to be a pretty nasty piece of business for you about that time?" "It would be if any one should get hold of this before the right time comes, but I do not anticipate any trouble, because I intend to be so guarded that nothing regarding my work will be known or suspected until my uncle is here, and we have them securely trapped.