“Rabid!” Eliza bridled a little at the hint of amused superiority in his voice.  “I’m a suffragist, too!  I dare say that adds to your disgust.”

“Nonsense!” he protested.  “I have no quarrel with conservation nor with ‘votes for women.’  Neither have I anything to conceal.  I’m only afraid that, like most writers, you will be content with half-information.  Incomplete facts are responsible for most misunderstandings.  If you are in earnest and will promise to take the time necessary to get at all the facts, I’ll make an agreement with you.”

“I promise!  Time and a typewriter are my only assets.  I don’t intend to be hurried.”

Dan approached, drawn by the uncomfortable knowledge of his sister’s predicament, and broke in: 

“Oh, Sis has time to burn!  She’s going to write a book on the salmon canneries while she’s here.  It’s bound to be one of the ’six best smellers’!”

O’Neil waved him away with the threat of sending him out among the mosquitoes.

“I’ll agree to show you everything we’re doing.”

“Even to the coal-fields?”

“Even to them.  You shall know everything, then you can write what you please.”

“And when I’ve exposed you to the world as a commercial pickpocket, as a looter of the public domain—­after Congress has appropriated your fabulous coal claims—­will you nail up the door of this little cottage, and fire Dan?”

“No.”

“Will you still be nice to me?”

“My dear child, you are my guest.  Come and go when and where you will.  Omar is yours so long as you stay, and when you depart in triumph, leaving me a broken, discredited wretch, I shall stand on the dock and wave you a bon voyage.  Now it’s bedtime for my ‘boys,’ since we rise at five o’clock.”

“Heavens!  Five!  Why the sun isn’t up at that time!”

“The sun shines very little here; that’s why we want you to stay at Omar.  I wish we might also keep Miss Natalie.”

When the callers had gone Eliza told Natalie and Dan: 

“He took it so nicely that I feel more ashamed than ever.  One would think he didn’t care at all.  Do you suppose he does?”

“There’s no denying that you appeared at an unfortunate time,” said her brother.

“Why?”

“Well—­I’m not sure we’ll ever succeed with this project.  Parker says the glacier bridge can be built, but the longer he studies it the graver he gets.  It’s making an old man of him.”

“What does Mr. O’Neil say?”

“Oh, he’s sanguine, as usual.  He never gives up.  But he has other things to worry him—­money!  It’s money, money, all the time.  He wasn’t terribly rich, to begin with, and he has used up all his own fortune, besides what the other people put in.  You see, he never expected to carry the project so far; he believed the Trust would buy him out.”

“Well?”