"Well, he—he—that is, he might be disappointed. Uncle Jim may not get control. If he does he'll treat everybody fairly, of course. I don't want to raise false hopes."
"Considerate of you," said Wade, "not to say ingenious."
She flushed angrily for a moment, and then laughed.
"It's all the reason you'll get. Be a good friend, do. Promise! Also you are to say nothing to Kitty."
"Afraid of being jollied?"
"Mr. Wade, you are impertinent!" But her eyes laughed at him.
"I'll keep your dark secret," said Wade. "It will be a joke on Kitty!"
And so Casey Dunne was left in ignorance.
CHAPTER XXII
Tom McHale ambled into Coldstream one afternoon, and dropped his pony's reins behind the station. Thence he clanked his spurs into Mr. Quilty's sanctum. That gentleman, nodding somnolently above a blackened clay pipe, rolled an appraising eye at him.