He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the door and into the deepening dusk. "Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back. His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's apt to have trouble," he concluded. "Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?" "You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't leave Josie Lockwood alone." "So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully. "Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you." A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it. "Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly, stepping nearer. "I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her money, you could sneak in and cut me out...." "Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?" "What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind. "'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet." So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back files in the Citizen office! "Indeed?" "Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin', but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry." "Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?" "Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You can't fool me!" A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his fingers were itching. "So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?" "You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr. Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----" Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string. "That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening, thanks." "Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?" "I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here." "You better agree----" [Illustration: "Betty!"]