“I won’t!” exploded Grant, stopping his restless pacing and slamming himself on to a chair.

“Oh, yes, you will,” asserted Craig, with absolute confidence.  “You’re not going back on me.”

“There’s nothing in this—­nothing!  I’ve known Rita Severence nearly twenty years, and I know she’s done with you.”

Craig sprang to his feet, went over and laid his heavy hand heavily upon Arkwright’s shoulder.  “And,” said he, “you know me.  Did I ever say a thing that didn’t prove to be true, no matter how improbable it seemed to you?”

Arkwright was silent.

“Grant,” Craig went on, and his voice was gentle and moving, “I need you.  I must have you.  You won’t fail me, will you, old pal?”

“Oh, hell!—­I’ll go,” said Grant in a much-softened growl.  “But I know it’s a wild-goose chase.  Still, you do need the clothes.  You’re a perfect disgrace.”

Craig took away his hand and burst into his noisy, boyish laughter, so reminiscent of things rural and boorish, of the coarse, strong spirits of the happy-go-lucky, irresponsibles that work as field hands and wood-haulers.  “By cracky, Grant, I just got sight of the remnants of that dig I gave you.  It was a beauty, wasn’t it?”

Arkwright moved uneasily, fumbled at his collar, tried to smile carelessly.

“I certainly am the luckiest devil,” Craig went on.  “Now, what a stroke pushing you over and throttling you was!” And he again laughed loudly.

“I don’t follow you,” said Grant sourly.

“What a vanity box you are!  You can’t take a joke.  Now, they’re always poking fun at me—­pretty damn nasty! some of it—­but don’t I always look cheerful?”

“Oh—­you!” exclaimed Grant in disgust.

“And do you know why?” demanded Craig, giving him a rousing slap on the knee.  “When I find it hard to laugh I begin to think of the greatest joke of all—­the joke I’ll have on these merry boys when the cards are all played and I sweep the tables.  I think of that, and, by gosh, I fairly roar!”

“Do you talk that way to convince yourself?”

Craig’s eyes were suddenly shrewd.  “Yes,” said he, “and to convince you, and a lot of other weak-minded people who believe all they hear.  You’ll find out some day that the world thinks with its ears and its mouth, my boy.  But, as I say, who but I could have tumbled into such luck as came quite accidentally out of that little ‘rough-house’ of mine at your expense?”

“Don’t see it,” said Grant.

“Why, can’t you see that it puts you out of business with Margaret?  She’s not the sort of woman to take to the fellow that shows he’s the weaker.”

“Well, I’ll be—­damned!” gasped Arkwright.  “You have got your nerve!  To say such a thing to a man you’ve just asked a favor of.”

“Not at all,” cried Craig airily.  “Facts are facts.  Why deny them?”

Arkwright shrugged his shoulders.  “Well, let it pass....Whether it’s settled me with her or not, it somehow—­curiously enough—­ settled her with me.  Do you know, Josh, I’ve had no use for her since.  I can’t explain it.”