"It's been tough, Bud. So tough I don't know how I got through. Guess I shouldn't have without you. You see, Bud, you never said a thing, and--and that saved me. Guess I'm sort of tired now. Tired of thinking, tired of--everything. But it's over, and now I sort of feel I've got to get busy, or I'll forget how to play the man. I don't guess I'll ever hope to forget. No, I don't want to forget. I couldn't, just as I couldn't forget that there's some one in the world took ten thousand dollars as the price of Ronny's poor foolish life. Oh, it's pretty bad," he sighed wearily. "But--I've closed the book, Bud, and please God I'll never open it again." CHAPTER IX FOUR YEARS LATER Nan Tristram smiled to herself as she sat in the comfortable rocker before the open French window which gave on to the wide wooden balcony beyond. The view she had was one of considerable charm, for Aston's Hotel was situated facing one end of Maple Avenue, looking straight down its length, which was at once the principal and most beautiful thoroughfare in the picturesque western city of Calthorpe. But her smile had nothing to do with anything the prospect yielded her. Its beauties were undeniable; she had admitted them to herself many times. But she knew them with that intimacy which robs things of their first absorbing charm. The wide-spreading maple trees, which so softened down the cold beauty of the large stone-fronted residences lining the avenue, were always a source of soothing influence in the excited delight of a visit to this busy and flourishing city. Then the vista of lofty hills beyond the far limits of the town, with their purpling tints, their broken facets, their dimly defined woodland belts, they made such a wonderful backing to the civilized foreground. Nan Tristram loved the place. For her, full of the dreams of youth, Calthorpe was the hub of all that suggested life and gaiety. It was the one city she knew. It was the holiday resort of the girl born and bred to the arduous, and sometimes monotonous life of the plains. But it was, in reality, a place of even greater significance. Nan saw it only as it appealed to her ardent fancy. But Calthorpe was a flourishing and buoyant city of "live" people, who were fully aware of its favorable possibilities as the centre of the richest agricultural region in the whole of the State of Montana. It was overflowing with prosperity. The ranching community, and the rich grain growers for miles around, poured their wealth into it, and sought its light-hearted life for the amusement of their families and themselves. Its social life was the life of the country, and to take part in it needed the qualification of many acres, or much stock, a bank balance that required no careful scrutiny, and a temperament calculated to absorb readily the joy of living.