It must have been a morbid wish from a sick heart that prompted him to ask Dana to do this unspeakably awful thing of going to hunt up a mother who had abandoned him without a word, and had never since seemed to regret her act!

By the time Bruce Carbury had reached his destination, he had thoroughly settled it with himself that he was the one divinely appointed to look after Dana Barron's affairs and prevent him from getting into a mix-up with a thoroughly undesirable family.

As he entered the great bronze door of the building upon which his own hopes had pinned themselves he gave a thought to that possible sister. She would be younger than Dana, and modern of course, a modern of the moderns. A shame and distress to Dana. No, a thousand times, no! Dana must be saved from such a family! The sister would have all the modern follies. She would drink and smoke. She would dance her nights away in nightclubs. She would suck the very life-blood from such a young man as Dana! Somehow he must save Dana from the hurts and dangers and sorrows that would come from such a contact. Dana was too fine to have his whole life spoiled. If need be he would go with Dana himself and find a way to protect him from any menace that might result from this contact! Even if it meant taking time from his own work and endangering the loss of his own position he must help Dana in any way he could.

As he entered the elevator and shot upward to the fifteenth floor, he gave a thought to the possibility of getting Dana to go back to his Western job after a mere call on his family and let it go at that. Dana was his beloved friend. He must be protected.

Then the elevator stopped at the fifteenth floor and Bruce Carbury had enough of his own affairs to think about without worrying about Dana's.

About that time the long-distance wires were busy between the Western publishing house where Dana had been working for the past two years, and a certain publishing house in New York.

"Is this Mr. Burney?" called the voice of Dana's chief. "Hello, Burney, this is Randolph. Yes, Randolph of the Universal. Say, I had a letter from Hatfield of Chicago today, saying he heard that Maynard was leaving you to go into business for himself. Is that right? You don't say so! Well, that's going to be a disappointment for you people, isn't it? Yes, I thought you depended upon him a good deal. I remember what you said about him. Well, Burney, have you got his place filled? No? You don't say! Was it as sudden as that? Well, Burney, I've got a suggestion for you. What's that? Me? No, I'm fixed for life here, I guess. But we've got a young fellow who's been working with us for a couple of years, and he's a number one. He's suddenly had to go east on some family business that may keep him a little while. What's that? No, we don't want to get rid of him! We hate to see him go, and we've told him his place is here ready for him when he returns. But we think a lot of him and want to see him prosper while he is away. We want him to make good contacts in New York, and he's promised to go in and see you. I gave him a letter of introduction to you. I hope he'll present it soon. But when this letter of Hatfield's came today it occurred to me that you might just happen to want to put your finger on someone who is thoroughly dependable to help you out in a pinch till you fill Maynard's place. So I just thought I'd take a chance and call you up. You can't make a mistake taking our man temporarily. What's that? How long is he going to be there? Well, he wasn't just sure.