Driven by Starbuck in the brand-new car, Smith reached the dam at half-past ten and was in time to see the swarming carpenters begin the placing of the forms for the pouring of the final section of the great wall. Though the high water was lapping at the foot timbers of the forming, and the weather reports were still portentous, Williams was in fine fettle. There had been no further interferences on the part of the railroad people, every man on the job was spurting for the finish, and the successful end was now fairly in sight.

"We'll be pouring this afternoon," he told Smith, "and with a twenty-four-hour set for the concrete, and the forms left in place for additional security, we can shut the spillway gates and back the water into the main ditch. Instead of being a hindrance then, the flood-tide will help. Under slack-water conditions it would take a day or two to finish filling the reservoir lake, but now we'll get the few feet of rise needed to fill the sluices almost while you wait."

"You have your guards out, as we planned?" Smith inquired.

"Twenty of the best men I could find. They are patrolling on both sides of the river, with instructions to report if they see so much as a rabbit jump up."

"Good. I'm going to let Starbuck drive me around the lake limits to see to it personally that your pickets are on the job. But first, I'd like to use your 'phone for a minute or two," and with that Smith shut himself up in the small field-office and called Martin, the bookkeeper, at the town headquarters.

The result of the brief talk with Martin seemed satisfactory, for when it was concluded, Smith rang off and asked for the Hophra House. Being given the hotel exchange, he called the number of Miss Richlander's suite, and the answer came promptly in the full, throaty voice of the Olympian beauty.

"Is that you, Montague?"

"Yes. I'm out at the dam. Nothing has been done yet. No telegraphing, I mean. You understand?"

"Perfectly. But something is going to be done. Mr. K. has had Colonel B. with him in the bank. I saw the colonel go in while I was at breakfast. When are you coming back to town?"

"Not for some time; I have a drive to make that will keep me out until afternoon."

"Very well; you'd better stay away as long as you can, and then you'd better communicate with me before you show yourself much in public. I'll have Jibbey looking out for you."

Smith said "good-by" and hung up the receiver with a fresh twinge of dissatisfaction. Every step made his dependence upon Verda Richlander more complete. To be sure, he told himself, they had both forsworn sentiment in the old days, but was that any guaranty that it was not now awakening in Josiah Richlander's daughter? And Corona Baldwin: what would she say to this newest alliance? Would she not say again, and this time with greater truth, that he was a coward of the basest sort; of the type that makes no scruple of hiding behind a woman's skirts?

Happily, there was work to do, and he went out and did it. With the new car to cover the longer interspaces, a complete round of Williams's sentries was made, with dÉtours up and down the line of the abandoned Red Butte Southwestern, whose right-of-way claims had been so recently revived. Smith tried to tell himself that he was only making a necessary reconnaissance thoroughly; that he was not delaying his return to town because Verda had told him to. But when the real motive could no longer be denied, he brought himself up with a jerk. If it had come to this, that he was afraid to face whatever might be awaiting him in Brewster, it was time to take counsel once more of the elemental things.

"Back to Brewster, Billy, by way of the camp," he directed, and the overworked car was turned and headed accordingly.

It was some little time before this, between the noon-hour and the one-o'clock Hophra House luncheon, to be exact, that Mr. David Kinzie, still halting between two opinions, left his desk and the bank and crossed the street to the hotel. Inquiry at the lobby counter revealing the fact that Miss Richlander was in her rooms, Kinzie wrote his name on a card and let the clerk send it up. The boy came back almost immediately with word that Miss Richlander was waiting in the mezzanine parlors.

The banker tipped the call-boy and went up alone. He had seen Miss Richlander, once when she was driving with Smith and again at the theatre in the same company. So he knew what to expect when he tramped heavily into the parlor overlooking the street. None the less, the dazzling beauty of the young woman who rose to shake hands with him and call him by name rather took him off his feet. David Kinzie was a hopeless bachelor, from choice, but there are women, and women.

"Do you know, Mr. Kinzie, I have been expecting you all day," she said sweetly, making him sit down beside her on one of the flaming red monstrosities billed in the hotel inventories as "Louis Quinze sofas". "My father sent me a note by one of your young men, and he said that perhaps you would—that perhaps you might want to—" Her rich voice was at its fruitiest, and the hesitation was of exactly the proper shade.

Kinzie, cold-blooded as a fish with despondent debtors, felt himself suddenly warmed and moved to be gentle with this gracious young woman.

"Er—yes, Miss Richlander—er—a disagreeable duty, you know. I wanted to ask about this young man, Smith. We don't know him very well here in Brewster, and as he has considerable business dealings with the bank, we—that is, I thought your father might be able to tell us something about his standing in his home town."

"And my father did tell you?"

"Well—yes; he—er—he says Smith is a—a grand rascal; a fugitive from justice; and we thought—" David Kinzie, well hardened in all the processes of dealing with men, was making difficult weather of it with this all-too-beautiful young woman.

Miss Richlander's laugh was well restrained. She seemed to be struggling earnestly to make it appear so.

"You business gentlemen are so funny!" she commented. "You know, of course, Mr. Kinzie, that this Mr. Smith and I are old friends; you've probably seen us together enough to be sure of that. Hasn't it occurred to you that however well I might know the Mr. Smith my father has written you about, I should hardly care to be seen in public with him?"

"Then there are two of them?" Kinzie demanded.

The young woman was laughing again. "Would that be so very wonderful?—with so many Smiths in the world?"

"But—er—the middle name, Miss Richlander: that isn't so infern—so very common, I'm sure."

"It is rather remarkable, isn't it? But there are a good many Montagues in our part of the world, too. The man my father wrote you about always signed himself 'J. Montague', as if he were a little ashamed of the 'John'."

"Then this Brewster Smith isn't the one who is wanted in Lawrenceville for embezzlement and attempted murder?"

"Excuse me," said the beauty, with another very palpable attempt to smother her amusement. "If you could only know this other Smith; the one my father wrote you about, and the one he thinks you were asking about: they are not the least bit alike. J. Montague, as I remember him, was a typical society man; a dancing man who was the pet of the younger girls—and of their mothers, for that matter; you know what I mean—the kind of man who wears dress clothes even when he dines alone, and who wouldn't let his beard grow overnight for a king's ransom. But wait a moment. There is a young gentleman here who came last evening direct from Lawrenceville. Let me send for him."

She rose and pressed the bell-push, and when the floor boy came, he was sent to the lobby to page Jibbey. During the little wait, David Kinzie was skilfully made to talk about other things. Jibbey was easily found, as it appeared, and he came at once. Miss Richlander did the honors graciously.

"Mr. Kinzie, this is Mr. Tucker Jibbey, the son of one of our Lawrenceville bankers. Tucker—Mr. Kinzie; the president of the Brewster City National." Then, before Kinzie could begin: "Tucker, I've sent for you in self-defense. You know both Mr. John Smith, at present of Brewster, and also J. Montague Smith, sometime of Lawrenceville and now of goodness only knows where. Mr. Kinzie is trying to make out that they are one and the same."

Jibbey laughed broadly. He stood in no awe of banks, bankers, or stubbly mustaches.

"I'll tell John, when I see him again—and take a chance on being able to run faster than he can," he chuckled. "Ripping good joke!"

"Then you know both men?" said Kinzie, glancing at his watch and rising.

"Like a book. They're no more alike than black and white. Our man here is from Cincinnati; isn't that where you met him, Verda? Yes, I'm sure it is—that night at the Carsons', if you remember. I believe I was the one who introduced him. And I recollect you didn't like him at first, because he wore a beard. They told me, the last time I was over in Cinci, that he'd gone West somewhere, but they didn't say where. He was the first man I met when I lit down here. Damn' little world, isn't it, Mr. Kinzie?"

David Kinzie was backing away, watch in hand. Business was very pressing, he said, and he must get back to his desk. He was very much obliged to Miss Richlander, and was only sorry that he had troubled her. When her father should return to Brewster he would be glad to meet him, and so on and so on, to and beyond the portiÈres which finally blotted him out, for the two who were left in the Louis Quinze parlor.

"Is that about what you wanted me to say?" queried Jibbey, when the click of the elevator door-latch told them that Mr. Kinzie was descending.

"Tucker, there are times when you are almost lovable," said the beauty softly, with a hand on Jibbey's shoulder.

"I'm glad it's what you wanted, because it's what I was going to say, anyway," returned the ne'er-do-well soberly, thus showing that he, too, had not yet outlived the influence of the overnight hand-grip.

An hour further along in the afternoon, Starbuck's new car, pausing momentarily at the construction camp to give its occupants a chance to witness the rapid fulfilment of Williams's prediction in the swiftly pouring streams of concrete, advertised its shining presence to the engineer, who came up for a word with Smith while Starbuck had his head under the hood of the new-paint-burning motor.

"Somebody's been trying to get you over the wire, John; some woman," he said, in tones as low as the thunderings of the rock-crushers would sanction. "She wouldn't give me her number, but she wanted me to tell you, if you came back here, that it was all right; that you had nothing to be afraid of. She said you'd understand."