The Helpers

the bitterness there is in the crop. Some such illusory assumption lent itself to Jeffard's mood when he assured himself that he had finally reached

m hospitality, and dodging the haunts of his few acquaintances in the downtown thoroughfares for the same reason. This drove him to the residen

it not unlikely that he might presently stumble upon the home of the young woman. He found it a square or two farther out,

remarked that she was small almost to girlishness. But the suggestion of immaturity paused with her stature. The rounded arms discovered by the loose sleeves of her belted house-gown; the firm, full outline of her figure; the crowning glory of red-

weet-faced young woman with the red-brown hair and sympathetic eyes set itself antithetically over against the self-seeking ambition of the girl who had written her own epitaph in the book of his remembrance. He gave place to the sharply defined cont

se with a climbing rose on one of its veranda pillars. For what had a man to whom the proletary's highway was already

The shame of it was too new to strike hands with dissimulation as yet, and companionship was least of all things to be desired. If he could but win back to his room unaccosted and lock him

shot out and barred the way. Jeffard looked up with an unspoken malediction on his tongue. It was Bartr

all and pinning him fast with one finger. "You're no man's man, and you're not fit to live

w." Jeffard tried to say it naturally

't you afford to be s

as but a clumsy liar, contrived to f

guess. When I came by, the cler

head and appeare

mmented reflectively. "I asked him five minutes a

d to break away; but Bartrow locked arms

ure. "I suppose you had your reasons for dodging, and while it's ten to o

et, and though the smell of Bartrow's cigar m

have you?" Ba

r the present. I'm not feel

around and see what the money people are

ining Exchange, telling of his claims and prospects in Chaffee County, and warming to his subject as only a seasoned Coloradoan can when the talk is of "mineral" and mining. Jeffard, being hungry, and sick with a fierce longi

f its edge. The atmosphere of the room was pungent with cigar smoke, and th

eed, as a matter of course. It was a shameful subterfuge, and he loathed himself for having descended to it. Nevertheless, he took the cigar

h the bit of quartz on his watch-chain came

elf. Besides being one of the most lovable old infants on top of earth, he's one of Denver's picturesques

what

hunt for mineral. He found it-Steve would find it if anybody could-but some sharp rascal eu

in the outward presentment of the pioneer in an appraisive

e,-but the 'pioneer's luck' will catch him again some day, and j

ily?" queri

ckel. She's had her share of the ups and downs, and they've made a queer little medley of her. Trap and tandem and a big house on Capitol Hill one month, and as like as not two rooms in a blo

," Jeffard admitted, me

ood people. By the way, why can't you come up to the house with me some evening and get acquainted? They've

ides, there are particular reasons why I don't wish to m

a minute while I go get the old man and i

ossed the river and tramped for hours in the Highlands. He told himself he was killing time and keeping out of the way of the luncheon hour; but in reality he was fighting a desperate battle

pentant kneadings. Since one must eat to live, the pride-quenching thing must come to pass; but the doing of it should be the pivot upon which he would turn back to sanity and industrious thrift. The loss of his small patrimony and the hard-earned savings by which it had been fairly

r-castles spacious and many-storied, with the new resolutions for their foundations. But when the sidewalks of the streets were once more under his feet, the pri

ind a pawnshop where his pride might suffer least. At the cigar counter in the rotunda a giant in rough tweeds, with an unshorn beard and the fine bronze of the grazin

t for you all day, I'm a liar and the truth has shook me. Been to dinner?-but of course you haven't; or if you hav

ophet and elsewhere; but I haven't bee

did that muley maverick at the hot

. I've been 'eating around,' as we use

got a train-load of steers on the iron, and I'm due to chase 'em at eight-thirty. But before I forget it, here"-the big man found a compact little wad of bank-notes in

a sudden swelling of the throat that made

gerie together. What's the matter with you? Don't tell me you don't rememb

e loan was in celluloid counters, in fact, and not in legal tender at all. And having been made, it was swiftly lost sight of in the varying fortunes of the sitting. None the less, the return of it at the precise

at's the worst that can be said of you. I had forgotten it long ago. Take me in and fill