Barker took up his hat with some stiffness and moved toward the door.  Here he stopped irresolutely, an irresolution that seemed to communicate itself to his partners.  There was a moment’s awkward silence.  Then Demorest suddenly seized him by the shoulders with a grip that was half a caress, and walked him rapidly to the door.  “And now don’t stand foolin’ with us, Barker boy; but just trot off like a little man, and get your grip on that fortune; and when you’ve got your hooks in it hang on like grim death.  You’ll”—­he hesitated for an instant only, possibly to find the laugh that should have accompanied his speech—­“you’re sure to find us here when you get back.”

Hurt to the quick, but restraining his feelings, Barker clapped his hat on his head and walked quickly away.  The two partners stood watching him in silence until his figure was lost in the underbrush.  Then they spoke.

“Like him—­wasn’t it?” said Demorest.

“Just him all over,” said Stacy.

“Think of him having that stock stowed away all these years and never even bothering his dear old head about it!”

“And think of his wanting to put the whole thing into this rotten hillside with us!”

“And he’d have done it, by gosh! and never thought of it again.  That’s Barker.”

“Dear old man!”

“Good old chap!”

“I’ve been wondering if one of us oughtn’t to have gone with him?  He’s just as likely to pour his money into the first lap that opens for it,” said Stacy.

“The more reason why we shouldn’t prevent him, or seem to prevent him,” said Demorest almost fiercely.  “There will be knaves and fools enough who will try and put the idea of our using him into his simple heart without that.  No!  Let him do as he likes with it—­but let him be himself.  I’d rather have him come back to us even after he’s lost the money—­his old self and empty-handed—­than try to change the stuff God put into him and make him more like others.”

The tone and manner were so different from Demorest’s usual levity that Stacy was silent.  After a pause he said:  “Well! we shall miss him on the hillside—­won’t we?”

Demorest did not reply.  Reaching out his hand abstractedly, he wrenched off a small slip from a sapling near him, and began slowly to pull the leaves off, one by one, until they were all gone.  Then he switched it in the air, struck his bootleg smartly with it, said roughly:  “Come, let’s get to work!” and strode away.

Meantime Barker on his way to Boomville was no less singular in his manner.  He kept up his slightly affected attitude until he had lost sight of the cabin.  But, being of a simple nature, his emotions were less complex.  If he had not seen the undoubted look of affection in the eyes of his partners he would have imagined that they were jealous of his good fortune.  Yet why had they refused his offer to share it with him?  Why had they so strangely assumed that their