Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/39

Rh our friends more highly than the people do who count them by dozens."

He had followed John Gault out into the hall, and from here his voice called:

"The lamp, Viola. Mr. Gault can't put on his overcoat in the dark."

She came out quickly, carrying the smaller of the two lamps, divested once more of its paper-flower shade. To give a better light she held it up and looked at him, smiling a little from under the halo made by her hair. In answer to his good night she gave him her hand, which he pressed with a warm, strong grip.

As he went down the few steps from the porch the colonel stood in the doorway, his figure in sharp silhouette against the light within.

"Don't be a month finding your way down here again," he said. "People say it 's out of the beaten tracks, but we prefer it to any other locality in the city. Viola and I like the old associations, and I 've struck my roots here too deep to have them pulled up. Well, good night! So long!"

The door closed, and as John Gault opened the gate, the light vanished from the two long panes of glass that edged it on both sides, and gleamed out through the cracks and crevices between the blinds of the bay-window.

It was a warm night, soft and still, and Gault