“Grandfather!” Nevada sprang up and faced the old man furiously. “How can you dare! Have you forgotten that Mr. Rawlins and his partner saved my life and Grandmother’s? Oh, what a groveling lot of brute beasts we have become!” “Mr. Rawlins is my affair,” Peter said sternly, catching Nevada’s hand as she would have passed him and pulling her down to his knee. “I brought him here. He is doing this work for me. You two will profit by it, though it will not cost you so much as a crust of bread. Nevada is right, except that you strike me as being more like vultures. All you think of is what lies at the bottom of the river. “The bigness of the achievement, the real significance of a lifetime’s devotion to one tremendous demonstration of man’s dominion over nature means less than nothing to you two. I asked Rawlins to look over our work and advise us. He’s doing it. It’s only by courtesy that you two were called in to hear what he has to say. It’s out of friendship for _me_ that he’s going on with his study of the problems we have to solve. “Why, damn you,” he flared out suddenly--for all the world like King, of the Mounted--“you couldn’t hire this man to do for you what he’s doing for me for nothing!” CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHANGED RELATIONS Young Jess and Old Jess exchanged sidelong glances. Young Jess turned his head away from the group and spat out a quid of tobacco on to the porch floor, whereat Nevada frowned her disgust. “Yeah--we know all about him doin’ it fer _you_,” he leered. He eyed the two through half-closed lids. “You played it slick, but not slick enough. When yuh thought up a name fer him, Pete, you’d oughta stuck to it, ’stid of changin’ your mind first day he was here. Gladys knows. He told Nevada one name, an’ you come along and changed it on him. “Look at ’im, Dad! D’ yuh ever see father an’ son look more alike in your life? By--, you can’t make a fool outa me, Pete, nor outa Gladys. Why don’t yuh own up? _We_ know you’re his daddy. You can’t claim to me an’ Gladys you never throwed in with no woman! Not with that face, right there, callin’ you a liar!” Nevada started, and Peter’s arm around her tightened restrainingly. She did not speak, although her lips parted in astonishment. She looked at Rawley and met his eyes fixed upon her questioningly. Nevada flushed and turned away her face, hiding it against Peter’s cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me, Uncle Peter?” she whispered chidingly. “You could have trusted me--you know you could.” Peter’s arm tightened again. His face was turned toward the Cramers. His lips were drawn up a bit at the corners in a smile, but his eyes were hard. “Well, and what of it?” he asked calmly. “Suppose he _is_ my son--what then?” Young Jess was prying off a fresh chew of tobacco from a half-plug that filled his palm.