The Fortune Hunter Part 48

"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"

"Here--this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of happiness to death. Harry"--Duncan was growing almost sententious--"the real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something and--and to have someone who believes in you to work for."

"Is this a sermon, Nat?"

"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've found out this year."

Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"

Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he demanded blankly.

Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his daughter."

"Oh-h!"

"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."

"So he is."

"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people, and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."

"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.

"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral, between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl that he'd made up his mind--some time ago, I gather--to make you a present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an insignificant detail like that."

"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."

"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he wouldn't say a word about the offer--yes or no--just left it all up to you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a help you must have been to me before you left New York."

Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"

"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred stock--hundred dollars par."

"What's that worth?"

"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a moment. "Well, what do you say?"

"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can clear out----"

"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."

Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he shouted. "Here he is!"

"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired

Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his one-time rival.

"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got something to say to you, I guess."

And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store, Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear.

"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"

"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."

"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I come here to have a word with you."

"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and att.i.tude were perfectly pacific.

"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into our confidence, 'spite of the fact that n.o.body in town knows who you were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I want to know the rights to it."

"Well," Roland interposed c.o.c.kily, "I accused him of it to-night and he didn't deny it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"]

"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he can prove it?"

"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"

"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in Noo York."

There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features gravely composed.

"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."

"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business before it goes any further."

"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.

"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."

To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an att.i.tude, "I refuse to answer," said he.

"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.

"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does this mean?"

Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.

"Is it true?" she insisted.

"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.

"Then you admit it?"

"I admit nothing."

"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate you!" she cried in a voice of loathing