READING TIME @ 29 MINUTES 49 SECONDS

FRICHARD AINLEE is the young, steely-eyed junior part-

ner in the banking house of Tolman-Granger & Co. He’

dominates the elderly president, Tolman, and calmly vetoes
the latter’s meek suggestion that an extension of the mortgage
which Paula Hartley begs be granted on Hartley Hall, her
father’s country estate.

Blind to the human side of the girl’s pleas, Richard can
only see that her promise to pay from her winnings in the
Mantico Hunt Cup race which she is confident her beloved
mare Scatter Gold will win would not be sound banking
collateral.

However, two points impress themselves on Ainlee’s coldly
calculating mind. One is Paula’s rare beauty; the other, the
fact that his poverty-stricken boyhood was spent in the
shadows of Hartley Hall, and Paula’s father, Major Hartley,
had wrecked his own now dead father’s political career. He

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goes to Meredith and bids in the mansion at the foreclosure

sale. :
He also bids in Scatter Gold, and Paula tries to kill both ~
herself and the mare by dashing at a too high jump over a

stone wall. Neither is injured.

The Hartleys and the major’s sister, Sylvia Marsden, move
into an old house near by. Richard retains the Hall’s servant
staff, including Dan Carrick, the groom, and Saunders, the
butler. Then he meets Margie Windle, who trained Scatter
Gold. Meantime John Barron commissions Margie to find
Paula another horse to win the cup. He also shows an
unusual interest in Margie’s adopted boy, Tommy. Before
returning to his pressing financial affairs in the city, Richard
wants to put the Hall in order. He rides Scatter Gold to the
Hartleys’ new home, and calmly informs Sylvia Marsden in
the garden there that he desires to give the mare back to
Paula. He adds with quiet assurance that he will later
marry the girl and put her back in the Hall. Sylvia laughs
at his matrimonial methods, as cold-blooded as his banking,
but calls Paula out to decide for herself.

LIBERTY FOR DECEMBER 29, 1934