ter his spirit. Tom Woods had said to go to his father. Had Tom Woods foreseen the coming of yesterday's event? A dozen questions he could not answer crowded into his brain. He intended to tell the Butterfly Man nothing, to ask him nothing. He just wanted to see him. In some strange way he seemed to know that he would find a sustaining strength merely by sitting in the company of his friend.
His feelings with respect to Old Man Clud were mixed. There had been a subtle type of warning in the lender's last words reminding him of the date when payment of the loan would be due. Sometimes he thought that a velvet threat lay under the wheezed and gasped syllables; sometimes he reasoned that it was only natural that a man who had lent money should impress the time of its return upon the borrower. The bonus was another stumbling block. Had Old Man Clud driven a hard, grasping, covetous bargain, or had he done only what anybody would do who took a risk that a bank would refuse? Oh, if he had a mere fraction of his father's business knowledge! And yet his father was the last person in the world to whom he would have taken his doubts and his fears at this moment.
He was aroused from his reverie by sounds that had been growing upon him as he rode along. His ears caught a pounding as of wood upon wood, and a man's deep and throaty voice, rising
