The Rules of the Game | Page 3

title is
clouded."
"Why?"
"Can't seem to remember; but I must have come against some record
somewhere. Didn't pay extra much attention, because I wasn't
interested in that piece. Something to do with fraudulent homesteading,
wasn't it?"
Orde dropped his oars across his lap to fill and light a pipe.
"That title was deliberately clouded by an enemy to prevent my raising

money at the time of the Big Jam, when I was pinched," said he. "Frank
Taylor straightened it out for me. You can see him. As a matter of fact,
most of that land I bought outright from the original homesteaders, and
the rest from a bank. I was very particular. There's one 160 I wouldn't
take on that account."
"Well, that's all right," said Welton, his jolly eyes twinkling. "Why the
secrecy?"
"I wanted a business for Bob when he should grow up," explained Orde;
"but I didn't want any of this 'rich man's son' business. Nothing's worse
for a boy than to feel that everything's cut and dried for him. He is to
understand that he must go to work for somebody else, and stand
strictly on his own feet, and make good on his own efforts. That's why I
want you to break him in."
"All right. And about this partnership?"
"I want you to take charge. I can't leave Washington. We'll get down to
details later. Bob can work for you there the same as here. By and by,
we'll see whether to tell him or not."
The twilight had fallen, and the shores of the river were lost in dusk.
The surface of the water itself shone with an added luminosity,
reflecting the sky. In the middle distance twinkled a light, beyond
which in long stretches lay the sombre marshes.
"That's the club," said Orde. "Now, if you disgrace me, you old duffer,
I'll use you as a decoy!"
A few moments later the two men, opening the door of the
shooting-box, plunged into a murk of blue tobacco smoke. A
half-dozen men greeted them boisterously. These were just about to
draw lots for choice of blinds on the morrow. A savoury smell of
roasting ducks came from the tiny kitchen where Weber--punter,
keeper, duck-caller and cook--exercised the last-named function.
Welton drew last choice, and was commiserated on his bad fortune. No
one offered to give way to the guest, however. On this point the rules of

the Club were inflexible.
Luckily the weather changed. It turned cold; the wind blew a gale.
Squalls of light snow swept the marshes. Men chattered and shivered,
and blew on their wet fingers, but in from the great open lake came
myriads of water-fowl, seeking shelter, and the sport was grand.
"Well, old stick-in-the-mud," said Orde as, at the end of two days, the
men thawed out in a smoking car, "ducks enough for you?"
"Jack," said Welton solemnly, "there are no ducks in Minnesota.
They've all come over here. I've had the time of my life. And about that
other thing: as soon as our woods work is under way, I'll run out to
California and look over the ground--see how easy it is to log that
country. Then we can talk business. In the meantime, send Bob over to
the Chicago office. I'll let Harvey break him in a little on the office
work until I get back. When will he show up?"
Orde grinned apologetically.
"The kid has set his heart on coaching the team this fall, and he don't
want to go to work until after the season," said he. "I'm just an old fool
enough to tell him he could wait. I know he ought to be at it now--you
and I were, long before his age; but----"
"Oh, shut up!" interrupted Welton, his big body shaking all over with
mirth. "You talk like a copy-book. I'm not a constituent, and you
needn't run any bluffs on me. You're tickled to death with that boy, and
you are hoping that team will lick the everlasting daylights out of
Chicago, Thanksgiving; and you wouldn't miss the game or have Bob
out of the coaching for the whole of California; and you know it. Send
him along when you get ready."

II
Bob Orde, armed with a card of introduction to Fox, Welton's office
partner, left home directly after Thanksgiving. He had heard much of

Welton & Fox in the past, both from his father and his father's
associates. The firm name meant to him big things in the past history of
Michigan's industries, and big things in the vague, large life of the
Northwest. Therefore, he was considerably surprised, on finding the
firm's Adams Street offices, to observe their comparative
insignificance.
He made his way into a narrow entry, containing merely a high desk,