"I presume you will want to make a new operating contract with the trustees, or with Garvin, and in that case you will want to cancel the old one. I haven't my copy of it with me, but I'll mail it to you when I get back to Denver." Denby is making a pretense of rummaging in the pigeonholes of the desk to cover a small struggle which has nothing to do with the superintendent's files. When the struggle is fought to a finish, he turns suddenly and holds out his hand. "Jeffard, that night when we wrangled it out up yonder on the old dump I said some things that I shouldn't have said if you had seen fit to be a little franker with me. Will you forget them?" Jeffard takes the proffered hand and wrings it gratefully. "Thank you for that, Denby," he says; "it's timely. I feel as if I'd like to drop out and turn up on some other planet. This thing has cost me pretty dear, one way with another." "It'll come out all right in the end," asserts the master; and then: "But you mustn't forget that the cost of it is partly of your own incurring. It's a rare failing, but there is such a thing as being too close-mouthed. You've made out your case, after a fashion, and I'm not going to appeal it; but your postulate was wrong. Human nature is not as incredulous of good intentions as the cynics would make it out to be. You might have told a few of us without imperilling Garvin." "I meant to do it; as I say, I did tell Bartrow that morning when I raced Garvin across the range and into Aspen. But he and every one else drew the other conclusion, and I was too stubborn to plead my own cause. The stubbornness became a mania with me after a time, and I had a fit of it no longer ago than last night. I let Lansdale die believing that he had argued me into promising to make restitution. We were coming down here to-day to set the thing in train, and, of course, he would have learned the whole truth; but for one night--" "For one night you would let him have the comfort of believing that he had brought it about," says Denby, quickly. "That wasn't what you were going to say, but it's the truth, and you know it. I know the feel of it; you've reached the point where you can get some sort of comfort out of holding your finger in the fire. Suppose you begin right here and now to take a little saner view of things. What are your plans?" "I haven't any." "Are you open to an offer?" "From you?--yes." "Good. I'm unlucky enough to have some mining property in Mexico, and I've got to go down there and set it in order, or send some one to do it for me. Will you go?" Jeffard's reply is promptly acquiescent. "Gladly; if you think I am competent." "I don't think,--I know. Can you start at short notice?" "The sooner the better. I said I should like to drop out and turn up on some other planet: that will be the next thing to it."