HE next morning, as soon as he was up, Alan went to his sister's room. He found her dressed and ready for him. She was seated before a cheerful grate-fire, looking over a magazine she had brought to pass the time on the train.

“Come in,” she said, pleasantly enough, he reflected, now that Miller was not present to absorb her attention. “I expected you to get up a little earlier. Those guns down at the bar-room just about daybreak waked me, and I couldn't go to sleep again. There is no use denying it, Al, we have a barbarous way of amusing ourselves up here in North Georgia.”

He went in and stood with his back to the fire, still unable to rid his brow of the frown it had worn the night before.

“Oh, I reckon you've got too citified for us,” he said, “along with other accomplishments that fast set down there has taught you.”

Adele laid her book open on her lap.

“Look here, Alan,” she said, quite gravely. “What's the matter with you?”

“Nothing, that I know of,” he said, without meeting her direct gaze.

“Well, there is,” she said, as the outcome of her slow inspection of his clouded features.

He shrugged his shoulders and gave her his eyes steadily.

“I don't like the way you and Miller are carrying on.” He hurled the words at her sullenly. “You see, I know him through and through.”

“Well, that's all right,” she replied, not flinching from his indignant stare; “but what's that got to do with my conduct and his?”

“You allow him to be too familiar with you,” Alan retorted. “He's not the kind of a man for you to—to act that way with. He has flirted with a dozen women and thrown them over; he doesn't believe in the honest love of a man for a woman, or the love of a woman for a man.”

“Ah, I am at the first of this!” Adele, instead of being put down by his stormy words, was smiling inwardly. Her lips were rigid, but Alan saw the light of keen amusement in her eyes. “Is he really so dangerous? That makes him doubly interesting. Most girls love to handle masculine gunpowder. Do you know, if I was Dolly Barclay, for instance, an affair with you would not be much fun, because I'd be so sure of you. The dead level of your past would alarm me.”

“Thank Heaven, all women are not alike!” was the bolt he hurled at her. “If you knew as much about Ray Miller as I do, you'd act in a more dignified way on a first acquaintance with him.”

“On a first—oh, I see what you mean!” Adele put her handkerchief to her face and treated herself to a merry laugh that exasperated him beyond endurance. Then she stood up, smoothing her smile away. “Let's go to breakfast. I'm as hungry as a bear. I told Rayburn—I mean your dangerous friend, Mr. Miller—that we'd meet him in the dining-room. He says he's crazy for a cup of coffee with whipped cream in it. I ordered it just now.”

“The dev—” Alan bit the word in two and strode from the room, she following. The first person they saw in the big dining-room was Miller, standing at the stove in the centre of the room warming himself. He scarcely looked at Alan in his eagerness to have a chair placed for Adele at a little table reserved for three in a corner of the room, which was presided over by a slick-looking mulatto waiter, whose father had belonged to Miller's family.

“I've been up an hour,” he said to her. “I took a stroll down the street to see what damage the gang did last night. Every sign is down or hung where it doesn't belong. To tease the owner, an old negro drayman, whom everybody jokes with, they took his wagon to pieces and put it together again on the roof of Harmon's drug-store. How they got it there is a puzzle that will go down in local history like the building of the Pyramids.”

“Whiskey did it,” laughed Adele; “that will be the final explanation.”

“I think you are right,” agreed Miller.

Alan bolted his food in grum silence, unnoticed by the others. Adele's very grace at the table, as she prepared Miller's coffee, and her apt repartee added to his discomfiture. He excused himself from the table before they had finished, mumbling something about seeing if the horses were ready, and went into the office. The last blow to his temper was dealt by Adele as she came from the dining-room.

“Mr. Miller wants to drive me out in his buggy to show me his horses,” she said, half smiling. “You won't mind, will you? You see, he 'll want his team out there to get back in, and—”

“Oh, I don't mind,” he told her. “I see you are bent on making a goose of yourself. After what I've told you about Miller, if you still—”

But she closed his mouth with her hand.

“Leave him to me, brother,” she said, as she turned away. “I'm old enough to take care of myself, and—and—well, I know men better than you do.”

When Alan reached home he found that Miller and Adele had been there half an hour. His mother met him at the door with a mysterious smile on her sweet old face, as she nodded at the closed door of the parlor.

“Don't go in there now,” she whispered. “Adele and Mr. Miller have been there ever since they come. I railly believe they are in love with each other. I never saw young folks act more like it. When I met 'em it looked jest like he wanted to kiss me, he was so happy. Now wouldn't it be fine if they was to get married? He's the nicest man in the State, and the best catch.”

“Oh, mother,” said Alan, “you don't understand. Rayburn Miller is—”

“Well, Adele will know how to manage him,” broke in the old lady, too full of her view of the romance to harken to his; “she ain't no fool, son. She 'll twist him around her finger if she wants to. She's pretty, an' stylish, an' as sharp as a brier. Ah, he's jest seen it all and wants her; you can't fool me! I know how people act when they are in love. I've seen hundreds, and I never saw a worse case on both sides than this is.”

Going around to the stables to see that his horses were properly attended to, Alan met his uncle leaning over the rail-fence looking admiringly at a young colt that was prancing around the lot.

“Christmas gift,” said the old man, suddenly. “I ketched you that time shore pop.”

“Yes, you got ahead of me,” Alan admitted.

The old man came nearer to him, nodding his head towards the house. “Heerd the news?” he asked, with a broad grin of delight.

“What news is that?” Alan asked, dubiously. “Young Miss,” a name given Adele by the negroes, and sometimes used jestingly by the family—“Young Miss has knocked the props clean from under Miller.” Alan frowned and hung his head for a moment; then he said:

“Uncle Ab, do you remember what I told you about Miller's opinion of love and women in general?”

The old man saw his drift and burst into a full, round laugh.

“I know you told me what he said about love an' women in general, but I don't know as you said what he thought about women in particular. This heer's a particular case. I tell you she's fixed 'im. Yore little sis has done the most complete job out o' tough material I ever inspected. He's a gone coon; he 'll never make another brag; he's tied hand an' foot.”

Alan looked straight into his uncle's eyes. A light was breaking on him. “Uncle Ab,” he said, “do you think he is—really in love with her?”

“Ef he ain't, an' don't ax yore pa an' ma fer 'er before a month's gone, I 'll deed you my farm. Now, look heer. A feller knows his own sister less'n he does anybody else; that's beca'se you never have thought of Adele follerin' in the trail of womankind. You'd hate fer a brother o' that town gal to be raisin' sand about you, wouldn't you? Well, you go right on an' let them two kill the'r own rats.”

Alan and his uncle were returning to the house when Pole Baker dismounted at the front gate and came into the yard.

Since becoming a landed proprietor his appearance had altered for the better most materially. He wore a neat, well-fitting suit of clothes and a new hat, but of the same broad dimensions as the old. Its brim was pinned up on the right side by a little brass ornament.

“I seed Mr. Miller drive past my house awhile ago with Miss Adele,” he said, “an' I come right over. I want to see all of you together.”

Just then Miller came out of the parlor and descended the steps to join them.

“Christmas gift, Mr. Miller!” cried Pole. “I ketched you that time.”

“And if I paid up, you'd cuss me out,” retorted the lawyer, with a laugh. “I haven't forgotten the row you raised about that suit of clothes. Well, what's the news? How's your family?”

“About as common, Mr. Miller,” said Pole. “My wife's gittin' younger an' younger ever'day. Sence she moved in 'er new house, an' got to whitewashin' fences an' makin' flower-beds, an' one thing another, she looks like a new person. I'd 'a' bought 'er a house long ago ef I'd 'a' knowed she wanted it that bad. Oh, we put on the lugs now! We wipe with napkins after eatin', an' my littlest un sets in a high-chair an' says 'Please pass the gravy,' like he'd been off to school. Sally says she's a-goin' to send 'em, an' I don't keer ef she does; they 'll stand head, ef they go; the'r noggin' s look like squashes, but they're full o' seeds, an' don't you ferget it.”

“That they are!” intoned Abner Daniel.

“I've drapped onto a little news,” said Pole. “You know what a old moonshiner cayn't pick up in these mountains from old pards ain't wuth lookin' fer.”

“Railroad?” asked Miller, interestedly.

“That's fer you-uns to make out,” said Baker. “Now, I ain't a-goin' to give away my authority, but I rid twenty miles yesterday to substantiate what I heerd, an' know it's nothin' but the truth. You all know old Bobby Milburn's been buyin' timber-land up about yore property, don't you?”

“I didn't know how much,” answered Miller, “but I knew he had secured some.”

“Fust and last in the neighborhood o' six thousand acres,” affirmed Pole, “an' he's still on the war-path. What fust attracted my notice was findin' out that old Bobby hain't a dollar to his name. That made me suspicious, an' I went to work to investigate.”

“Good boy!” said Uncle Abner, in an admiring undertone.

“Well, I found out he was usin' Wilson's money, an' secretly buyin' fer him; an' what's more, he seems to have unlimited authority, an' a big bank account to draw from.”

There was a startled pause. It was broken by Miller, whose eyes were gleaming excitedly.

“It's blame good news,” he said, eying Alan.

“Do you think so?” said Alan, who was still under his cloud of displeasure with his friend.

“Yes; it simply means that Wilson intends to build that road. He's been quiet, and pretending indifference, for two reasons. First, to bring us to closer terms, and next to secure more land. Alan, my boy, the plot thickens! I'm getting that fellow right where I want him. Pole, you have brought us a dandy Christmas gift, but I 'll be blamed if you get a thing for it. I don't intend to get shot.”

Then they all went to find Bishop to tell him the news.