It was Miss Van Vetter who met him at the door, and he thought he surprised a shadow of disappointment in her eyes when she welcomed him. But it was Constance who said, "Come in, Mr. Lansdale. Where is Dick?" She was holding the portière aside for him, and he made sure of his ingress before replying. Being of two minds whether to deny all previous knowledge of such a person as Richard Bartrow, or to commit himself recklessly to the hazards of equivocal explanations, he steered a middle course. "Am I my brother's keeper?" he demanded, dropping into the easy-chair which had come to be called his by right of frequent occupancy. "Oh, I hope you haven't murdered him!" said Connie, with a show of trepidation. "That's a terribly suggestive quotation." "So it is. But are not my hands clean?" He held them up for inspection. "How are you both this evening?" Connie's eyes danced. "Mr. Lansdale, do you happen to know anything about the habits of the ostrich?" Lansdale acknowledged defeat, extending his hands in mock desperation. "Put the thumbikins on if you must," he said, "but don't screw them down too hard. I couldn't tell anything but the truth if I should try." "What have you done with Dick?" "I have murdered him, as you suggested, and put his remains in a trunk and shipped them East." Miss Van Vetter looked horrified, but whether at his flippancy or at the hideous possibility, Lansdale could not determine. "But, really," Connie persisted, with a look in her eyes which would have exorcised any demon of brazenness; "you dined with him, you know." "So I did; but he had to go back to his mine on the night train. I saw him off, and he made me promise to come here and--and"-- "Square it?" Connie suggested. "That is precisely the word,--his word. And you will both bear me witness that I have done it, won't you?" Miss Van Vetter was cutting the leaves of a magazine, and she looked up to say: "That is one of the explanations which doesn't explain, isn't it?" Lansdale collapsed in the depths of the chair. "'I'm a poor unfort'net as don't know nothink,'" he quoted. "Tell me what you'd like to have me say and I'll say it." "Why did Mr. Bartrow have to go back so unexpectedly?" asked Myra. "He told Uncle Stephen he would be in Denver two or three days." Lansdale was not under bonds to keep the truthful peace at the behest of any eyes save those of Constance Elliott; wherefore he drew upon his imagination promptly, and, as it chanced, rather unfortunately. "He had a telegram from his foreman about a--a strike, I think he called it." "A strike in the Little Myriad!" This from both of the young women in chorus. Then Connie thankfully: "Oh, I'm so glad!" and Myra vindictively: "I hope he'll never give in to them!" Lansdale collapsed again. "What have I done!" he exclaimed. Constance set her cousin right, or tried to. "It isn't a strike of the men; it's pay-ore--isn't it, Mr. Lansdale?"