Geraldine laughed, flushing softly, "Isn't that just like him?" she said. "I can see his eyes twinkling." "It sounds rather good to me," Jimmie went on earnestly. "I have confidence in Bailey. And it was mother's dream, you know, to see me establish a paper over there; it would mean something to me to see it realized--but--do you think you could give up your career to help me through?" Geraldine was silent, and Jimmie leaned forward a little, resting on his stroke. "I know I am not worth it, but so far as that goes, neither was my father; yet mother gave up everything to back him. She kept him on that desert homestead the first five years, until he proved up and got his patent, and he might have stayed with it, been rich to-day, if she had lived." "Of course I like you awfully well," said Geraldine, flushing pinkly, "and it isn't that I haven't every confidence in you, but--I must take a little time to decide." A steamer passed, and Jimmie resumed his strokes, mechanically turning the canoe out of the trough. Geraldine opened the magazine and began to scan the editor's note under the title. "Why," she exclaimed tremulously, "did you know about this? Did you see the proofs?" "No. What is the excitement? Isn't it straight?" "Listen!" Miss Atkins sat erect; the cushion dropped under her elbow; her lips closed firmly between the sentences she read. "'This is one of those true stories stranger than fiction. This man, who wantonly murdered a child in his path and told of it for the amusement of a party of pleasure-seekers aboard a yacht on Puget Sound, who should be serving a prison sentence to-day, yet never came to a trial, is Hollis Tisdale of the Geographical Survey; a man in high favor with the administration and the sole owner of the fabulously rich Aurora mine in Alaska. The widow of his partner who made the discovery and paid for it with his life is penniless. Strange as it may seem--for the testimony of a criminal is not allowable in a United States court--Hollis Tisdale has been called as a witness for the Government in the pending Alaska coal trials!" The Society Editor met Jimmie's appalled gaze. "It sounds muckraky," she commented, still tremulously. "But these new magazines have to do something to get a hold. This is just to attract public attention." "They'll get that, when Tisdale brings a suit for libel. Hope he will do it, and that the judgment will swamp them. They must have got his name from Mrs. Feversham." "It looks political," said Geraldine conciliatingly, "as though they were striking through him at the administration." "Go on," said Jimmie recklessly. "Let's have it over with." And Geraldine launched quickly into the story. It had been mercilessly and skilfully abridged. All those undercurrents of feeling, which Jimmie had faithfully noted, had been suppressed; and of David Weatherbee, whom Tisdale had made the hero of the adventure, there was not a word.