Gray answered gruffly: "They might have said a good deal. They might have told you how they paid off your men and saved a walk-out when I had no money." O'Neil stared incredulously. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. When he had the facts he rose with an exclamation of dismay. "God! Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't they speak out? I--I--why, that's loyalty of the finest kind. All the money they had saved, too--when they thought I had failed! Jove! That was fine. Oh, I'm sorry! I wonder what they think of me? I can't let Dan go after that. I--" He seized his cap and hurried out of the building. "It's hardly right--when things were going so well, too!" said Dan. He was sitting crumpled up in a chair, Eliza's arm encircling his shoulders. "I didn't mean to give up any secrets, but--I'm not myself when I'm with Natalie." "We must take our medicine," his sister told him, gravely. "We deserve it, for this story may spoil all he's done. I didn't think it of her, though." Dan groaned and bowed his head in his hands. "I don't know which hurts worse," he said--"his anger or her action. She--couldn't do such a thing, Sis; she just couldn't!" "She probably didn't realize--she hasn't much sense, you know. But after all he's suffered, to think that we should injure him! I could cry. I think I shall." The door opened before a rough hand, and O'Neil strode into the room, huge, shaggy in his coonskin coat. They rose, startled, but he came to them swiftly, a look of mingled shame and gladness in his face. "I've come back to apologize," he cried. "I couldn't wait. I've learned what you children did while I was gone, and I've come to beg forgiveness. It's all right--it's all right." "I don't know what you mean," Dan gasped. "Doc told me how you paid those men. That was real friendship; it was splendid. It touched me, and I--I want to apologize. You see, I hurried right back." They saw that his eyes were moist, and at the sight Eliza gave a quivering cry, then turned swiftly to hide her face. She felt O'Neil's fur-clad arm about her shoulder; his hand was patting her, and he was saying gently: "You are a dear child. It was tremendously good of you both, and I--ought to be shot for acting as I did. I wonder if you can accept a wretched apology as bravely as you accepted a wrong accusation." "It wasn't wrong; it was right," she sobbed. "Dan told her, and she told Gordon." "There, there! I was to blame, after all, for letting any one know, and if Dan made a mistake he has more than offset it by his unselfishness--his sacrifices. It seems I forgot how much I really owe him." "That affair with the shift bosses wasn't anything," said Dan, hastily, "and it was all Eliza's idea. I refused at first, but when she started to pay them herself I weakened." He stuttered awkwardly, for his sister was motioning him desperately to be silent; but he ran on: "Oh, he ought to know the whole truth and how rotten I acted, Sis. I deserve to be discharged."