Crowding his hat upon his head with a vigorous jerk after his reluctant parting with Anne Linton at the church door, Jordan King jumped into his car and made his way slowly through the streets to the hotel where Aleck awaited him.  For the first few miles out of the city he continued to drive at a pace so moderate that Aleck more than once glanced surreptitiously at him, wondering if he were actually going to sleep at the wheel.  It was not until they were beyond the last environs and far out in the open country that, quite suddenly, the car was released from its unusual restraint and began to fly down the road toward home at the old wild speed.

Somehow or other, after this encounter, King could not settle down to his work till he had seen Red Pepper Burns.  He could not have explained why this should be so, for he certainly did not intend to tell his friend of the meeting with Anne Linton, or of the basis upon which his affairs now stood.  But he wanted to see Burns with a sort of hunger which would not be satisfied, and he went to look him up one evening when he himself had returned early from his latest trip to the concrete dam.

He found Burns just setting forth on a drive to see a patient in the country, and King invited himself to go with him, running his own car off at one side of the driveway and leaping into Burns’s machine with only a gay by-your-leave apology.  But he had not more than slid into his seat before he found that he was beside a man whom he did not know.

King had long understood that Red Pepper’s significant cognomen stood for the hasty temper which accompanied the coppery hair and hazel eyes of the man with the big heart.  But such exhibitions of that temper as King had witnessed had been limited to quick explosions from which the smoke had cleared away almost as soon as the sound of warfare had died upon the air.  He was in no way prepared, therefore, to find himself in the company of a man who was so angry that he could not—­or would not—­speak to one of his best friends.

“Fine night,” began the young man lightly, trying again, after two silent miles, to make way against the frost in the air.  “I don’t know when we’ve had such magnificent September weather.”

No answer.

“I hope you don’t mind my going along.  You needn’t talk at all, you know—­and I’ll be quiet, too, if you prefer.”

No answer.  King was not at all sure that Burns heard him.  The car was running at a terrific pace, and the profile of the man at the wheel against the dusky landscape looked as if it were carved out of stone.  The young man fell silent, wondering.  Almost, he wished he had not been so sure of his welcome, but there was no retreating now.