his wealth brought to McKaye a goodly measure of happiness—not because he was of Scottish ancestry and had inherited a love for his baubees, but because he was descended from a fierce, proud Scottish clan and wealth spelled independence to him and his.

The Laird would have filled his cup of happiness to overflowing had he married a less mediocre woman or had he raised his daughters as he had his son. The girls' upbringing had been left entirely in their mother's hands. Not so with young Donald, however—wherefore it was a byword in Port Agnew that Donald was his father's son, a veritable chip of the old block.

By some uncanny alchemy, hard cash appears to soften the heads and relax the muscles of rich men's sons—at least, such had been old Hector's observation, and on the instant that he first gazed upon the face of his son, there had been born in him a mighty resolve that, come what might, he would not have it said of him that he had made a fool of his boy. And throughout the glad years of his fatherhood, with the stern piety of his race and his faith, he had knelt night and morning beside his bed and prayed his God to help him not to make a fool of Donald—to keep Donald from making a fool of himself.

When Donald entered Princeton, his father decided upon an experiment. He had raised his boy right, and trained him for the race of life, and now The Laird felt that, like a thoroughbred horse, his son faced the barrier. Would he make the run, or would he, in the parlance of the sporting world, "dog it?" Would his four years at a great American university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a snob and a drone?

With characteristic courage, The Laird decided to give him ample opportunity to become either, for, as old Hector remarked to Andrew Daney: "If the lad's the McKaye I think he is, nothing can harm him. On the other hand, if I'm mistaken, I want to know it in time, for my money and my Port Agnew Lumber Company is a trust, and if he can't handle it, I'll leave it to the men who can—who've helped me create it—and Donald shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Tools," he added, "belong to the men that can use them."

When Donald started East for college, old Hector accompanied him as far as Seattle. On the way up, there was some man-talk between them. In his youth, old Hector had not been an angel, which is to state that he had been a lumberjack. He knew men and the passions that beset them—particularly when they are young and lusty—and he was far from being a prude. He expected his son to raise a certain amount of wild oats; nay, he desired it, for full well he knew that when the fires of youth are quenched, they are liable to flare disgracefully in middle life or old age.

"Never pig it, my son," was his final admonition. "Raise hell if you must, but if you love your old father, be a gentleman about it. You've sprung from a clan o' men, not mollycoddles."

"Hence the expression: 'When Hector was a pup,'" Donald replied laughingly. "Well, I'll do my best, father—only, if I stub my toe, you mustn't be too hard on me. Remember, please, that I'm only half Scotch."

At parting, The Laird handed his son a check for twenty-five thousand dollars.

"This is the first year's allowance, Donald," he informed the boy gravely. "It should not require more than a hundred thousand dollars to educate a son of mine, and you must finish in four years. I would not care to think you dull or lazy."

"Do you wish an accounting, father?"

The Laird shook his head.

"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, my son. I'll read the accounting in your eye when you come back to Port Agnew."

"Oh!" said young Donald.

At the end of four years, Donald graduated, an honor-man in all his studies, and in the lobby of the gymnasium, where the athletic heroes of Princeton leave their record to posterity, Hector McKaye read his son's name, for, of course, he was there for commencement. Then they spent a week together in New York, following which old Hector announced that one week of New York was about all he could stand. The tall timber was calling for him.

"Hoot, mon!" Donald protested gaily. He was a perfect mimic of Sir Harry Lauder at his broadest. "Y'eve nae had a bit holiday in all yer life. Wha' spier ye, Hector McKaye, to a trip aroond the worl', wi' a wee visit tae the auld clan in the Hielands?"

"Will you come with me, son?" The Laird inquired eagerly.

"Certainly not! You shall come with me. This is to be my party."

"Can you stand the pressure? I'm liable to prove an expensive traveling companion."

"Well, there's something radically wrong with both of us if we can't get by on two hundred thousand dollars, dad."

The Laird started, and then his Scotch sense of humor—and, for all the famed wit of the Irish, no humor on earth is so unctuous as that of the Scotch—commenced to bubble up. He suspected a joke on himself and was prepared to meet it.

"Will you demand an accounting, my son?"

Donald shook his head.

"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, father, I'll read the accounting in your eye when you get back to Port Agnew."

"You braw big scoundrel! You've been up to something. Tell it me, man, or I'll die wi' the suspense of it."

"Well," Donald replied, "I lived on twenty-five hundred a year in college and led a happy life. I had a heap of fun, and nothing went by me so fast that I didn't at least get a tail-feather. My college education, therefore, cost me ten thousand dollars, and I managed to squeeze a roadster automobile into that, also. With the remaining ninety thousand, I took a flier in thirty-nine hundred acres of red cedar up the Wiskah River. I paid for it on the instalment plan —yearly payments secured by first mortgage at six per cent., and——"

"Who cruised it for you?" The Laird almost shouted. "I'll trust no cruiser but my own David McGregor."

"I realized that, so I engaged Dave for the job. You will recall that he and I took a two months' camping-trip after my first year in Princeton. It cruised eighty thousand feet to the acre, and I paid two dollars and a half per thousand for it. Of course, we didn't succeed in cruising half of it, but we rode through the remainder, and it all averaged up very nicely. And I saw a former cruise of it made by a disinterested cruiser——"

The Laird had been doing mental arithmetic.

"It cost you seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars—and you've paid ninety thousand, principal and interest, on account. Why, you didn't have the customary ten per cent, of the purchase-price as an initial payment!"

"The owner was anxious to sell. Besides, he knew I was your son, and I suppose he concluded that, after getting ninety thousand dollars out of me at the end of three years, you'd have to come to my rescue when the balance fell due—in a lump. If you didn't, of course he could foreclose."

"I'll save you, my son. It was a good deal—a splendid deal!"

"You do not have to, dad. I've sold it—at a profit of an even two hundred thousand dollars!"

"Lad, why did you do it? Why didn't you take me into your confidence? That cedar is worth three and a half. In a few years, 'twill be worth five."

"I realized that, father, but—a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush—and I'm a proud sort of devil. I didn't want to run to you for help on my first deal, even though I knew you'd come to my rescue and ask no questions. You've always told me to beware of asking favors, you know. Moreover, I had a very friendly feeling toward the man I sold my red cedar to; I hated to stick him too deeply."

"You were entitled to your profit, Donald. 'Twas business. You should have taken it. Ah, lad, if you only knew the terrible four years I've paid for yon red-cedar!"

"You mean the suspense of not knowing how I was spending my allowance?"

The Laird nodded.

"Curiosity killed a cat, my son, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

"I had thought