“I do, and he is. New England born, I should say, from his clipped way of talking. He is living with a woman who is just about as tough as he is. I’ve seen her working the boxes in the Corinthian.” “Not married?” “Oh, I suppose not. People of his and her kind don’t bother about the little moral formalities. Going up-town? Wait a minute and I’ll walk with you. I’m about through here.” It was on the way up Seventeenth Street that Reddick said: “Don’t see you and Phil Trask chasing around together so much as you used to”--and stopped short with that. “No,” Bromley admitted. “I have the social bug, more or less, and Phil hasn’t.” “Money doesn’t spoil some people,” remarked the railroad man cryptically. “But it does others? Chuck it out, Reddick. What do you know about Phil?” “Oh, I run across him here and there--in places that I didn’t think he’d consent to be found dead in. You see, I knew him when he was with the narrow-gauge a year ago, before he went prospecting. In those days all he needed to make him a saint was a halo; but now he gambles a little, takes a drink when he feels like it--does a lot of things you couldn’t have hired him to do when he first came to Denver.” “I know,” said the play-boy easily. “I take a drink now and then, myself.” “But I’ll bet a hen worth fifty dollars you don’t take it solo, and in the places where I’ve seen Phil. However, let’s forget it. It’s none of my business.” At the corner of Curtis and Seventeenth, Bromley bade his walking companion good-night and turned westward. In the West Denver cottage he found that Jean was the only one sitting up; she was trimming a hat for herself. “I was in hopes I’d find you still up,” said Bromley, casting himself into the easiest chair the living-room afforded; then, scanting all the preliminaries: “I have found out what we wanted to know.” It was not like her to demand details, and she did not do so. “Is it bad?” she asked, without looking up from her work. “Just about as bad as it can be. I got the clue from Jim Garth, and then went to see for myself. Afterward, I talked with a man who knows.” “It did happen that Monday night, then?” “No doubt about it; though Garth couldn’t be sure of the date.” “Mr. Garth was there?” “Yes; he saw Phil and his father when they met, and saw them go off together. Things being as they are, it isn’t much wonder that Phil went to pieces. A whole worldful of misfortunes couldn’t have handed out a blow that would more completely smash a man of Phil’s make-up.” “But Philip isn’t to blame for what his father has done--or is!” she protested. “It isn’t the blame Philip is taking; it’s the shame.” “Does the man--Philip’s father--call himself by his right name?” Bromley’s smile was bleak. “No; he is known as ‘Deadwood’ Kent. It seems that he had decency enough to take an _alias_--though it might have been only for his own protection.” “You think there is no doubt but that he took the bank’s money?”