g. Its
growth has been steady, but it has depended for its deficit upon the
revenue from my oil property. And so have we all. Ames ruined Madam
Beaubien financially, as well as Miss Wall. He cleaned you out, Ned.
And now, knowing that we all depended upon my oil wells, he has, I
doubt not, completely removed that source of income."

"But," exclaimed Haynerd, "your property was insured, wasn't it?"

"Yes," replied Hitt, with a feeble attempt at a smile. "But with the
proviso that dynamite should not be kept on the premises. You will
note that dynamite wrecked the wells. That doubtless renders my
policies void. But, even in case I should have a fighting chance with
the insurance companies, don't you think that they will be advised
that I purposely set fire to the wells, in order to collect the
insurance? I most certainly do. And I shall find myself with a big
lawsuit on my hands, and with no funds to conduct the fight. Ames's
work, you know, is always thorough, and the Express is already facing
his suit for libel."

"But you told us you were going to mortgage your property," said Miss
Wall.

"I stood ready to, should the Express require it. But, with its recent
little boom, our paper did not seem to need that as yet," he
returned.

"Good God!" cried Haynerd. "We're done for!"

"Yes, Ned, God _is_ good!" It was Carmen who spoke.

Hitt turned quickly to the girl. "Can you say that, after all you have
endured, Carmen?"

He looked at her for a moment, lost in wonder. "An outcast babe," he
murmured, "left on the banks of a great river far, far away; reared
without knowledge of father or mother, and amid perils that hourly
threatened to crush her; torn from her beloved ones and thrust out
into an unknown and unsympathetic world; used as a stepping-stone to
advance the low social ambitions of worldly women; blackened by the
foulest slander, and ejected as an outcast by those who had fawned at
her feet; still going about with her beautiful message of love, even
though knowing that her childhood home is enveloped in the flames of
war, and her dear ones scattered, perhaps lost; spurned from the door
of the rich man whom she sought to save; carrying with her always the
knowledge that the one upon whom her affections had centered had a son
in distant Cartagena, and yet herself contributing to the support of
the little lad; and now, this morning--" He stopped, for he remembered
his promise.

"This morning," she finished,