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284 Ten minutes later Humphrey Bryant walked back to the Banner office. It required no effort, now, to keep the droop from his shoulders!

It was evening before Jim Harris returned to Pancake. He was bland and good-natured so far as a casual observer might have known, but rage seethed, in his breast. He entered Howe's room and flung off his vest irritably.

"Damned if things don't pinch out!" he grumbled. "I'd've sworn that kid would stay put."

"No word of him?"

"Not a whisper. He may be dead for all I know. I didn't dare raise a stink for fear—"

His gray eyes flickered with baffled rage.

Rowe paced the room.

"That's one hold on her that slipped," he said. "We've got to get busy, Harris. The old man won't wait all summer, and young John—"

He stopped shortly. "Say, you don't suppose—"

Harris looked up.

"Dah! Hell, no!—Huh?—" he seemed startled, but relaxed and shook his head again. "I guess not, Rowe. He's quick in the head, but I don't think—"

He did not say what he thought. His glowering look went out the window to the office of the Banner and rested there blackly. In the rooms above Humphrey Bryant was packing his bag. Tonight he could take up Helen's fight again!

It was after supper at the Commercial House. Harris and Rowe were on the porch smoking, conversing in casual tones, trying not to appear confidential when John Taylor came down the street. His face was drawn and pinched.