Murray shook his head. "Nobody knows anything about it except you boys." He seized the telephone at his elbow and called Dr. Gray, while Tom listened with his shining forehead puckered anxiously. O'Neil hung up with a black face. "Appleton!" he said. Tom looked, if possible, a shade gloomier than usual. "I wouldn't be too sure it was Dan if I was you," he ventured, doubtfully. "Where is he?" O'Neil ground out the words between his teeth. "Surveying the town-site addition. If he let anything slip it was by mistake--" "Mistake! I won't employ people who make mistakes of that kind. This story may bring the Canadian Government down on Illis and forfeit his North Pass charter--to say nothing of our authorities. That would finish us." He rose, went to the door, and ordered the recently arrived engine uncoupled. Flinging himself into his fur coat, he growled: "I'd rather have a crook under me than a fool. Appleton told us he talked too much." Tom pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Gordon got it through the Gerard girl, I s'pose." "Gordon! Gordon! Will there never be an end to Gordon?" His frown deepened. "He's in the way, Tom. If he balks this deal I'm afraid I'll--have to change ghosts." "It would be a pious act," Slater declared. "And his ghost wouldn't ha'nt you none, either. It would put on its asbestos overshoes and go out among the other shades selling stock in electric fans or 'Gordon's Arctic Toboggan Slide.' He'd promote a Purgatory Development Company and underwrite the Bottomless Pit for its sulphur. I--I'd hate to think this came from Dan." The locomotive had been switched out by this time, and O'Neil hurried to board it. On his way to Omar he had time thoroughly to weigh the results of this unexpected complication. His present desire was merely to verify his suspicion that Appleton had told his secret to Natalie; beyond that he did not care to think, for there was but one course open. His anger reached the blazing-point after his arrival. As he stepped down from the engine-cab Gray silently handed him a code message from London which had arrived a few moments before. When its contents had been deciphered, O'Neil cursed and he was furious as he stumbled through the dark toward the green bungalow on the hill. Swinging round the corner of the house, he came into a bright radiance which streamed forth from Eliza's window, and he could not help seeing the interior of the room. She was there, writing busily, and he saw that she was clad in the elaborate kimono which he had given her; yet it was not her personal appearance which arrested his angry eyes and caused his step to halt; it was, instead, her surroundings.