That race with death for the life of little Dottie Buckman brought such intense fatigue to Max that he did not that night think much about what Mr. Buckman might have to say to him; but the next day the coming interview mixed itself exasperatingly with books and recitations. He built all sorts of extravagant plans for the future; scoffed at himself for them, and was chagrined to find that the mere notion of good fortune could so distract him.

But when late that afternoon he was admitted to find Mr. Buckman busy at his desk, his dreams seemed very foolish. The atmosphere of severity that pervaded the office sobered him; and as the absorbed man did not look up, Max seated himself quietly to wait till he should be noticed.

At business the man looked the master he was. Power showed in every movement of his broad hand; sternness in every feature of his large, deeply lined face. He was one to drive important enterprises to success against the greatest odds; the only kind of man who is able to conquer the territory of the Northwest where nature, though lavish, makes harsh resistance.

Yet Max could read in that severe face love of justice, scorn of pettiness, and pride of personal honor.

When he looked up and saw Max the lines in his face broke from sternness to pleasure and he rose and shook hands cordially.

“I’ve been expecting you, my boy,” he said kindly, pointing to a nearer chair. “I’ve thought of you all day.”

It was a long conference. Mr. Buckman insisted on supporting Max while he finished his education. He wished him to leave Mrs. Schmitz at the beginning of the university year and go to a chapter house where he could use all of his time for study and other student interests—no doubt of Max’s ability to “make” a fraternity occurred to him. For this he told Max he had already arranged to pay him an allowance of one hundred dollars a month.

Max was intuitive; was able in mind to spring forward to the future, seeing at a glimpse all the long path to be traveled, as a bird, skimming the ether high above the earth, sees the great panorama spread below and her destination almost before she sets out.

So Max saw that no matter how kind and generous Mr. Buckman might mean to be, and really be, this course would bind Max to him for the future. Though he should accept the offer as a loan—and his pride was robust enough to allow it to be a loan only—he saw that deviation from the man’s wishes would mean to him ingratitude, a breach of fidelity.

It was to escape a similar situation that Max had run away from home. Could he give a stranger what he would not give his father, who had so much greater right to exact it—the absolute surrender of his own wishes?

He found it hard to explain himself. Every argument he offered was met by a stronger one. The financier was bent on doing something large and splendid for the boy who had saved his child; and he would not accept Max’s refusal.

“Mr. Buckman, were you always rich?” Max asked, a touch of desperation in his tone.

“Indeed, no. I was a poor farmer boy—made every dollar I have.” The pride of the self-made man was in his loud voice. “I carved my fortune out of this land—the timber, the water power, its rivers and sea.”

“What if some one, when you were a boy, had compelled you to take up medicine, or the law, or to be a minister? Would you?”

“By George, no! I wasn’t the sort for life in a chair. I wanted to be out fighting things; would like to be outside now.”

“Even if you had not gained riches you would have wished to have a voice in planning your life, wouldn’t you?”

“My boy, I don’t want to plan your life for you; I only want to help you carry out your own plans.”

Max was helpless. He felt Mr. Buckman’s present sincerity; yet he knew that one who said, “Go!” or “Come!” to scores of men who obeyed absolutely, would expect obedience from anyone who took his money. Deceit would be the alternative.

Suddenly he realized a little of the reason for Walter’s failure to please his father; unlimited pocket money, the flattery of his fellows, and the easy but fatal path of duplicity.

At last Max spoke resolutely. “Mr. Buckman, something in me makes it impossible to accept your offer. I don’t believe you yourself would think as well of me if I did.”

Surprised, the man looked steadily at Max a moment before replying. “I believe you’re right, boy. You’re a new sort of youngster to me. Go ahead in your own way. Only you must promise me this: if you ever need money, for school or business, come to me. Will you? Will you promise that?”

“If—if I need it pretty badly I’ll come. I’ll come before I have to rob ice boxes.” They both smiled, and the tension was broken.

After some further talk the interview ended, and Max left the office knowing he had won respect instead of merely gratitude. It had been a hard hour; and considering he had “turned down” a hundred dollars a month he thought it strange that he should feel so buoyant.

Whistling gayly as he walked from the car, he opened the door of his home to meet a stranger, a small, quiet-spoken man with an inscrutable face, who rose at once and held out a copy of the morning paper. “Are you the young man mentioned here as Max Ball?”

The paper had published a long, sensational account of the event of the previous day, magnifying Max’s part in it, giving a garbled story of his life in the city, and asserting that he would become the beneficiary of Mr. Buckman.

Max admitted his identity, but denied the closing statement.

Question after question the man asked, questions that seemed apropos of nothing at first; but they slowly, circuitously led to facts in Max’s life that he had intended never to disclose.

It seemed as if he were on trial for a crime he had not committed, and was being proven certainly guilty. As often as possible he took refuge in silence; but the man was able to compel speech, to make him tell all he knew and more besides.

“What is all this for?” Max importuned for the third time, when the man was closing his notebook.

“That I am not at liberty to mention.”

“I’m all straight; honest, I am!” Max pleaded. “And whatever you think you’ve found against me, I don’t want my—the lady here who has been so good to me, to be drawn into it. I can’t have her troubled.”

A slight change softened the inquisitor’s face. “I think we won’t need to annoy her. Perhaps you are more anxious yourself than is necessary.” With this he left Max to a long evening of distress.

Mrs. Schmitz was dining out that night, and he fidgeted for hours, wondering what the strange grilling could portend. But she was so late in returning that he concluded he must not disturb her, and went to bed in a ferment of excitement and bafflement.

With the dark his worries loomed larger. Could it be possible that at some place where he had worked things were missing, and at this late day they were suspecting him? Wild visions of prosecution, conviction on circumstantial evidence, and jail filled Max with terror, and when delayed sleep finally came, they persisted in troubled dreams.

The morning sun scattered his fears and a talk with Mrs. Schmitz wiped them out; though when the ringing of the doorbell interrupted them, her parting remark lodged a new idea, not a fear but an anxiety.

“Don’t you be troubling about stealings you never did, nor police, nor things like that. Some one iss hunting you; it will be your father!”

It was Billy coming with a cheerful message, which he delivered without the ceremony of other greetings.

“Max, old boy, you’re it, all righty. I was over to see May Nell last night. Mr. Smith was there, and I told him about what you did the other day—”

“What we did,” Max corrected.

“No interruptions. May Nell had told him how Walter treated you and how you stood it; and Mr. Smith said, ‘Tell that young chap to call on me. I’ve employment and promotion for men of that stamp. Most anyone can make good in the sunshine on a smooth road; but the man who plods alone in the dark and uphill is the one I can trust.’”

“He meant you, Billy. Mumps told me all about how Jim Barney treated you, and how you worked all summer with robbery hanging over you because you wouldn’t tell on a girl; and—”

“Cut it! That’s ancient history. It was Mr. Smith I worked for, and my job’s waiting for me whenever I want it. What I have for you is business for today. Right now! This minute! Mr. Smith wants you to come to see him. Understand?”

“But I can’t go to work yet. Mrs. Schmitz—”

“He doesn’t want you right away, only to chin with you a bit; to catch you before some one else nabs you. He’s all the time looking for ‘young timber well-seasoned and straight-grown,’ as he calls it, to put into his business.”

“How can he tell timber before it is tried out?”

“That’s just it. He thinks you have been tried out.”

Max pondered a moment, amazed by the many opportunities offering, by the strange things happening to him. But back of all perplexities stood a calm, strong figure, Mrs. Schmitz. And in contrast to the stress and strain he knew he must meet if he went to work for Mr. Smith or Mr. Buckman, he saw the warm, fragrant nursery with its mysteries of nature ever inviting study, and busy, happy evenings with music, his goddess.

It was but an instant that he was silent, his gaze fixed on the floor in an abstraction that Billy respected though it seemed long to him before Max spoke.

“Billy, it’s jolly good of you to do so much for me; and kind of Mr. Smith, too. But when he knows my plans I believe he will advise me to stick to them.”

“What are they?”

“Work for Mrs. Schmitz till I learn her business as well as she knows it.”

“What then?”

“She wants me for her partner.”

“Hooray for you! But you’ll have to give up your music.”

“No; she wishes me to go on with that. She says music and flowers go together, and that flowers will support me while I am conquering the violin. After that she—she thinks I’ll do something unusual. I shall try not to disappoint her.”

“Gee! Luck’s coming your way all right. No, you’ve just gone and collared the witch.”

“I guess that’s the only way to win her.”

They went away together to attend to many pressing matters concerning the play, which was only two days off. And the hurry and excitement pushed other disturbing thoughts out of Max’s mind till it was over, so successfully over that it won the coveted literary prize for the Fifth Avenue High.

But the day after, when Max was tired and depressed from loss of sleep, all his anxieties returned; and they were many, for he had imagined a hundred different dilemmas behind that strange interview.

He was playing softly in the cool parlor, trying to forget his worries, when a tall, distinguished looking man was ushered in. Max turned, and almost dropped his violin. “Father! Oh, father, you are ill!”

“Not ill now—now that I have found you.” He held out his arms.

Forgetting all his past resolves, Max threw himself into those open arms and returned their close, passionate embrace. “Father! I’m so glad!”

“My boy! You cannot be half so glad as I. Do you forgive me?”

Max was astonished. His father asking forgiveness! “Don’t ask that! I—I am the one.”

“No. I was the older one. I should have been the wiser, known my son better. All this long dreadful year that I have searched for you, I have known that it was my unreasonable command that you should give up music entirely and study law whether you liked it or not, that drove you from home. It was my bitter lesson.”

Max noted the thinner figure, the lines of sorrow in his face, and the gray in his hair that had been shining black the last time he saw it; and he understood a little of the grief that had walked by his father’s side day and night for the longest year of his life.

Mrs. Schmitz, hearing voices, came in and met Max’s father as a friend. “I have been expecting you already. I knew you would be finding him, Mr. Ballantree. Mine own daughter after thirteen years comes out of the sea to me; much easier was it for you to find Max.”

Briefly they discussed the search, coming soon to Max’s future.

“What do you wish, my son? To stay here or come home with me?”

How different was this from the heated words, sounding so terrible in young ears, that had driven Max from home. “I’d rather see you dead than a miserable fiddler!” the father had said, standing before his library fire, and not looking up when his son left the room for the last time.

Max told of Mrs. Schmitz’s goodness, her wisdom, and her business offer, not omitting the future he hoped for with his violin. “But if you wish it I will go with you and try to make a success of law.”

The sad, careworn look came again to the man’s face, but before he could speak Mrs. Schmitz broke in. “The law iss it? Will you ask him to that?”

“No. I ask nothing of him, except that he shall try to be a good man and—and love his old father a little.”

His voice trembled, and Max went to him, putting his arm across his shoulders. “I shall always do that, father. I think I understand you now.”

“Ach! If fathers only would remember that when the goot God cuts out a boy mit the pattern of a fiddler he iss not intending to make a lawyer to settle fights. Mit music you settle fights better anyways.”

“You are right. Mothers know best. His did, but I wouldn’t listen to her. The boy stays with you, Mrs. Schmitz. You saved him.”

When Mr. Ballantree left shortly for his eastern home it was to arrange his affairs for removing to Washington, the state that Max chose for his future home.

THE END