Broffin got up and took a half-burned cigar from the ledge of the summer-house where he had carefully laid it at the beginning of the interview. "You've got me down," he confessed, with a good-natured grin. "The man that plays a winnin' hand against you has got to get up before sun in the morning and hold _all_ trumps, Miss Grierson--to say nothin' of being a mighty good bluffer, on the side." Then he switched suddenly. "How's Mr. Galbraith this morning?" "He is very low, but he is conscious again. He has asked us to wire for the cashier of his bank to come up." Broffin's eyes narrowed. "The cashier is sick and can't come," he said. "Well, some one in authority will come, I suppose." Once more Broffin was thinking in terms of speed. Johnson, the paying teller, was next in rank to the cashier. If he should be the one to come to Wahaska.... "If you haven't anything else for me to do, I reckon I'll be going," he said, hastily, and forthwith made his escape. The telegraph office was a good ten minutes' walk from the lake front, and in the light of what Miss Grierson had just told him, the minutes were precious. Something less than a half-hour after Broffin's hurried departure, Miss Grierson, coated and gauntleted, came down the Mereside carriage steps to take the reins of the big trap horse from Thorsen's hands. Contrary to her usual custom, she avoided Main Street and drove around past the college grounds to come by quieter thoroughfares to the industrial district beyond the railroad tracks. For the first time in a riotous week, Pottery Flat was outwardly peaceful and its narrow streets were practically empty. Just what this portended, Margery did not know; but she found out when she turned into the street upon which the Raymer property fronted. Smoke was pouring from the tall central stack of the plant, and it had evidently provoked a sudden and wrathful gathering of the clans. The sidewalks were filled with angry workmen, and an excited argument was going forward at one of the barred gates between the locked-out men and a watchman inside of the yard. The crowd let the trap pass without hindrance. However coldly Lake Boulevard and upper Shawnee Street might regard Miss Grierson, there was no enmity in the glances of the Flat dwellers--and for good reasons. In want, Miss Margery had poured largesse out of a liberal hand; and in sickness she had many times proved herself the veritable good angel that some people called her. It was one of the strikers who offered to hold the big Englishman when the magnate's daughter sprang from the trap at the office door, and for the young fellow who offered she had a smile and a pleasant word. "I wouldn't trouble you to do that, Malcolm; but if you'll lead him along to that post and hitch him, I'll be much obliged," she said.