“What has Davis done to you?” Samson asked, recalling where he had met Eli that morning.

Eli explained that he had borrowed money from Davis to tide him over the hard times and was paying twelve per cent. for it.

“Dis morning I get dot letter from his secretary,” he said as he passed a letter to Samson.

It was a demand for payment in the handwriting of the Brimstead note and had some effect on this little history.  It conveyed definite knowledge of the authorship of a malicious falsehood.  It aroused the anger and sympathy of Samson Traylor.  In the conditions then prevailing Eli was unable to get the money.  He was in danger of losing his business.  Samson spent a day investigating the affairs of the merchant.  His banker and others spoke well of him.  He was said to be a man of character and credit embarrassed by the unexpected scarcity of good money.  So it came about that, before he left the new city, Samson bought a fourth interest in the business of Eli Fredenberg.  The lots he owned were then worth less than when he had bought them, but his faith in the future of Chicago had not abated.

He wrote a long letter to Bim recounting the history of his visit and frankly stating the suspicions to which he had been led.  He set out on the west road at daylight toward the Riviere des Plaines, having wisely decided to avoid passing the plague settlement.  Better weather had come.  In the sunlight of a clear sky he fared away over the vast prairies, feeling that it was a long road ahead and a most unpromising visit behind him.

CHAPTER XXI

WHEREIN A REMARKABLE SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE BEGINS ITS SESSIONS IN
THE REAR OF JOSHUA SPEED’S STORE.  ALSO AT SAMSON’S FIRESIDE HONEST ABE
TALKS OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE LAW AND THE RIGHT OF REVOLUTION, AND LATER
BRINGS A SUIT AGAINST LIONEL DAVIS.

The boy Joe had had a golden week at the home of the Brimsteads.  The fair Annabel knowing not the power that lay in her beauty had captured his young heart scarcely fifteen years of age.  He had no interest in her younger sister, Jane.  But Annabel with her long skirts and full form and glowing eyes and gentle dignity had stirred him to the depths.  When he left he carried a soul heavy with regret and great resolutions.  Not that he had mentioned the matter to her or to any one.  It was a thing too sacred for speech.  To God in his prayers he spoke of it but to no other.

He asked to be made and to be thought worthy.  He would have had the whole world stopped and put to sleep for a term until he was delivered from the bondage of his tender youth.  That being impossible it was for him a sad but not a hopeless world.  Indeed he rejoiced in his sadness.  Annabel was four years older than he.  If he could make her to know the depth of his passion perhaps she would wait for him.  He sought for self-expression in The Household Book of Poetry—­a sorrowful