The Tenderfoots by Francis Lynde

BROMLEY had been occupying the spare bed-room in the Dabney cottage for nearly a fortnight on the Saturday when, calling at the Windsor Hotel to tell the Follansbees about a bargain in furnished houses he had happened to hear of, he saw Stephen Drew registering in at the room clerk's desk and crossed the lobby to shake hands with him.

"This is a piece of luck," said the lessee of the "Little Jean," after the greetings were passed. "I didn't know your address and was expecting to have to dig you up through the bank or the post-office. I came down on business, but also I was anxious to get hold of you. If you have a few minutes to spare -- -- ?"

"All the time there is," returned the play-boy cheerfully, leading the way to a couple of the lobby chairs. Then, with a laugh: "I hope you are not going to tell me the ‘Little Jean' is petering out."

"Nothing like that. The mine is all right. The values are increasing, as your next dividend will show. I wanted to talk to you about Trask. Do you know where he is?"

"I haven't the remotest idea. He dropped out between two minutes one morning early last week, leaving a note which merely said that he was vanishing. It's all right, though. He has been making a good many swings around the circle in the past month or so, on a sort of still hunt for his -- for a man he is trying to find."

"Did you see him before he left Denver this last time?"

"Why, yes; I was with him the evening before he left; and I saw him, for just a minute or two, the next morning."

"Anything wrong with him then?"

Bromley took time to think back. Previous to that brittle meeting in the breakfast-room at Charpiot's, Philip had been out, somewhere, all night. Now that he recalled it, he remembered that the meeting had been only momentary; that Philip had looked rather the worse for wear; that his refusal to take the spare room in the Dabney cottage had been almost brutal in its abruptness.

"I can't say there was anything definitely wrong," he replied. "I remember he looked a bit gloomy and wrought up, but that is nothing new for him. He has pretty bad attacks of the New England conscience at times -- if you know what that means."

Drew nodded. "I understand. But that isn't to the point just now. Your partner is in Leadville, and he is badly in need of a friend; somebody near enough and intimate enough to take him by the neck."

Bromley laughed easily.

"There must be some mistake about that. Philip, himself, is the one who rushes around taking people by the neck."

"You are off wrong, this time," the promoter cut in shortly. "I don't believe he has been entirely sober at any one time during the past two weeks, and he seems to be permeated with an idea that he can use up all the red paint there is and break all the gambling banks in the camp if he only sticks at it long enough."

"Good heavens! " Bromley gasped; "not _Philip_!"

"Yes, Philip. Of course, I understand that it's none of my business, but I hate to see such a fine, upstanding fellow as he is go to the devil in a hand-basket. Has he had trouble of any sort?"

Bromley took a moment to consider whether or not he had a right to breach Philip's confidence in the matter of the search for his father, and decided quickly that the present crisis warranted it. Very briefly he told Drew the little he knew about the Trask family tragedy, and of the futile search Philip had been making.

"Ah," said the shrewd-witted developer of mines, "that may be the clue. You say Philip believed in his father's innocence?"

"Absolutely and utterly. But from what he has told me, I gathered that he was pretty much alone in that belief; that, as a matter of fact, not even the other members of the family shared it."

"I see. Then that may be the key to the present situation. Trask is pretty sensitive on the family honor question, and all that, isn't he?"