that's all--no other reason on earth. Jolly lucky, don't you think?"

Carruthers didn't say anything for a moment. When he spoke, it was irrelevantly. "You saved me twenty-five thousand dollars on that reward, Jimmie."

"That's the only thing I regret," said Jimmie Dale brightly. "It wasn't nice of you, Carruthers, to turn on the Gray Seal that way. And it strikes me you owe the chap, whoever he is, a pretty emphatic exoneration after what you said in this morning's edition."

"Jimmie," said Carruthers earnestly. "You know what I thought of him before. It's like a new lease of life to get back one's faith in him. You leave it to me. I'll put the Gray Seal on a pedestal tomorrow that will be worthy of the immortals--you leave it to me."

And Carruthers kept his word. Also, before the paper had been an hour off the press, Carruthers received a letter. It thanked Carruthers quite genuinely, even if couched in somewhat facetious terms, for his "sweeping vindication," twitted him gently for his "backsliding," begged to remain "his gratefully," and in lieu of signature there was a gray-coloured piece of paper shaped like this:CHAPTER III
THE MOTHER LODE

It was the following evening, and they had dined together again at the St. James Club -- Jimmie Dale, and Carruthers of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS. From Clayton and a discussion of the Metzer murder, the conversation had turned, not illogically, upon the physiognomy of criminals in general. Jimmie Dale, lazily ensconced now in a lounging chair in one of the club's private library rooms, flicked a minute speck of cigar ash from the sleeve of his dinner jacket, and smiled whimsically across the table at his friend.

"Oh, I dare say there's a lot in physiognomy, Carruthers," he drawled. "Never studied the thing, you know--that is, from the standpoint of crime. Personally, I've only got one prejudice: I distrust, on principle, the man who wears a perennial and pompous smirk -- which isn't, of course, strictly speaking, physiognomy at all. You see, a man can't help his eyes being beady or his nose pronounced, but pomposity and a smirk, now --" Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders.

Carruthers laughed -- and then glanced ludicrously at Jimmie Dale, as the door, ajar, was pushed open, and a man entered.

"Speaking of angels," murmured Jimmie Dale -- and sat up in his chair. "Hello, Markel!" he observed casually, "You've met Carruthers, of the 

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