Cross-Purposes at Cedarcrest

At Cedarcrest, the night was still young. Patricia, and then Morton, had arrived at the country home of the Gardners while the several guests were still at table, and the scenes which followed their coming had passed with such stunning rapidity that every one of the party was more or less affected by them, each one in his or her separate manner. The men of the party were silent and preoccupied. The scene enacted just before the departure of Morton weighed more or less heavily upon them, and while each one felt that the young ranchman had "got what was coming to him," there was not one among them who did not experience a thrill of sympathy for the young fellow, who had been so well liked by the new acquaintances he had made in the East.

The two gentlemen strangers, who had brought Morton to the house in their car, were the first to take their departure, after Morton's dramatic exit, although they remained long enough to imbibe a whisky-and-soda, and to hear what Jack Gardner still had to say. That was not so very much, but, like all he had said that night, it was straight to the point.

"Gentlemen," he said to them, standing with his glass in hand and addressing all, impersonally, "what I have to say now, is said to all, alike. Two of you are strangers to me; the others are more or less intimately my friends. It is my particular wish that we should all bind ourselves to secrecy, concerning what has happened at Cedarcrest, and in this vicinity, to-night. It happens that no real harm has been done; no one has been injured; amends have been made to Miss Langdon, so far as it has been possible to make them, and I am quite sure of her desire never to hear the subject mentioned again."