The League of the Leopard. Bindloss Harold

it among the deep mine owners."

      "I'm afraid not, sir," was the answer. "The patent lawsuit proved expensive, and to start an article of that kind successfully requires a good deal of money. I shall therefore go abroad to earn a little more as soon as the firm sends me."

      "And risk your life for a thousand pounds," said Chatterton severely. "Don't you know that there are men with money who would be willing to finance you?"

      "All I have met demanded three-fourths of the possible profits in return; and this is my invention."

      "It is a valuable one," declared Chatterton with unusual diffidence. "But can't you think of anybody who would lend you the money out of good-will at a very moderate interest?"

      Dane looked at the speaker steadily before he answered.

      "I think I could; and I'm grateful; but unfortunately I can't bring myself to borrow money from such people. It would be abusing their kindness; and I might lose it for them."

      Chatterton frowned.

      "You are like your father – and as confoundedly hard to do a favor to," he said.

      He retired shortly after this; and Dane went out into the moonlight, and leaned over the rails of a footbridge, watching the river slide past. He found a faint solace in the sounds and scents which filled the shadows, and knew that though he had taken the one course possible, if he was to retain his own self-respect and Lilian's esteem, there would be no sleep for him that night.

       CHAPTER III

      AT THE ELBOW POOL

      While waiting for his foreign commission, Dane found the summer days slip by almost too rapidly, though there were occasions when, after a long afternoon spent in Lilian's company, he fancied he could understand the feelings of Tantallus. The girl appeared completely reassured, and treated him with sisterly cordiality, while Chatterton, who knew nothing of their compact, nodded sapiently as he observed their growing friendship. Dane sometimes wondered if he were not heaping up future sorrow for himself; but, with infrequent exceptions, he found the present very good, and, being a sanguine man who could wait, he made the most of it.

      Lilian was troubled by no misgivings. Once, when her aunt asked a diplomatic question, she smiled frankly as she said: "Yes. I am in one way very fond of Hilton; you will remember that I always was. We understand each other thoroughly; and he is so assured and solid that one feels a restful sense of security in his company. You will remember the Highland chieftain's candlesticks – the men with the claymores and torches, Aunty. Well, I fancy that worthy gentleman must have felt the same thing when he dined in state with them about him. He had but to lift his finger and they would disappear, you know."

      Mrs. Chatterton looked slightly grave as she answered: "Don't forget that they were also men with passions, and very terrible men, sometimes – for instance, at Killiecrankie. It would not surprise me if you discovered that there is a good deal of very vigorous human nature in Hilton Dane."

      Thomas Chatterton still went fishing, generally with indifferent success, but once Lilian caught Dane examining his creel, which was surprisingly well filled.

      "I am puzzled, Hilton," she said. "I made a wager with Uncle that he would not catch a dozen good trout in a month, and now I fancy that he will win it."

      "Well?"

      "Men are deceivers ever – especially when it is a question of catching fish. I have noticed that when your host goes fishing by daylight he rarely catches anything but eels, which, as everybody knows, do not rise to a fly, while when he rises early or returns in the dusk he brings a really fine trout or two. I cannot, however, believe that this one died only two hours ago. Can you suggest an explanation?"

      "Charity," said Dane gravely, "suspecteth nothing. Don't you know that trout rise most freely just before the dusk?"

      Lilian shook her head.

      "You are not sufficiently clever to set your wits against a woman's," she declared.

      Dane laughed, a trifle grimly; and the girl, momentarily startled by something in his merriment, decided that she must have been mistaken; but she abandoned the subject with some abruptness.

      That very evening, perhaps sent forth by fate, because much depended upon his fishing, Thomas Chatterton took up his rod and landing net, and, as he did not return by nightfall, his wife once more despatched Dane in search of him.

      "I think you know where to find him; and I wish I did, for he has only to take two more trout to win," Lilian added significantly.

      Dane proceeded by the shortest way to the big elbow pool, but it was almost dark when he reached it. There had been heavy rain, and all the firs which loomed through thin white mist were dripping. The water came down beneath them thick with the peat of the moorlands in incipient flood. Dane could hear its hoarse growl about the boulders studding the tail rapid, and surmised that there ought to be several trout on the poacher's line. Having, nevertheless, no desire to surprise his host red-handed, he did not immediately proceed toward it, but sat upon the driest stone he could find, listening for his coming. There was no sound but the clamor of the river and the heavy splashing of moisture from the boughs above, some of which trickled down his neck, until he heard a rattle of falling stones, and a shadowy figure, which he guessed was Chatterton's, crawled down toward the alder roots.

      A splash was followed by a hoarse exclamation as the man slipped into the water up to the knee; then Dane heard the thud of a flung out fish, and sat very still, for it would clearly be injudicious to present himself just then. He noticed a minute twinkle of brightness among the boulders across the pool which puzzled him. It was too small for the light of a lantern, and he remembered nothing that shone in just the same fashion. While he wondered what it could be, another dark object rose beside the alder, gripping what looked like a heavy stick.

      "I'm thinking I have ye noo!" a gruff voice exclaimed. "Ye sorrowful wastrel, stealing a puir man's fish!"

      Thomas Chatterton stood upright, knee-deep in the river, with an exclamation; and Dane, knowing there was much deeper water close behind him, sprang to his feet. That the irascible iron-master would show fight if necessary, he felt certain, and equally so that a portly elderly gentleman would make a poor match for a brawny laborer. Hardly had he got to his feet, however, than the keeper, sliding down the bank, dropped silently into the river, and disappeared as if by magic, while, as Dane wondered what had startled him, another voice rang out.

      "Run straight in on the alder while I head him off from the firs!" it directed; and a whistle was followed by the sound of trampling feet.

      Somebody came smashing through the undergrowth, and Dane was never quite certain as to the cause for what happened next, though he surmised that Chatterton's dread of becoming a laughing-stock to his enemy proved momentarily stronger than his reason. In any case, he must have endeavored to follow the keeper's lead, and lost his footing, for a side swing of the stream swept him out from shore, while Dane, realizing that an elderly gentleman in heavy boots and leggings was hardly likely to make much head against a flooded river, plunged from the bank in the flattest dive he could compass, though horribly afraid that he might strike his head against a submerged stone. It was a good plunge, for he rose almost in mid-stream, and heard a great splashing and panting close before him. A few moments later, he had Chatterton by the shoulder, and braced himself for a struggle.

      Chatterton, though driving sideways down the stream, could apparently swim a little, and did not appear unduly alarmed. Indeed, Dane had cause for believing he feared nothing except ridicule; but he was very heavy, and panted stentoriously, while muddy froth beat into the younger man's eyes and nostrils, and the rebound, which surged in a whirling eddy from a central rock, swept them down together toward the white race between the boulders at the tail of the pool. Dane had no intention of being hammered against them if it could be avoided, and did his utmost, thrusting with one hand on Chatterton's shoulder and swimming on his side. Still, the boulders swept up-stream past them, the larches flitted by, and though they drew clear of the fastest rush, it seemed impossible that they could make a landing in time to escape the rapid. Chatterton was apparently swallowing water, and choking badly now.

      "For heaven's sake, make a last effort,