lver Shield Mining Company spent in a squabble among
themselves that ended in the smothering of "the Breifogle interest,"
and came near to sending "the Boss of Argenta" to jail. Several days
elapsed before Captain Lee and Lieutenants McCrea and Graham felt it
entirely prudent to leave, but when they did it was with the assurance
that stockholders who had endured to the end, as had Graham, Lee, and
McCrea, were now to reap the reward of their tenacity.

It is a recorded fact that, within three weeks after the departure of
McCrea and Geordie from West Point for the West, there came an offer to
Dr. Graham of something like six times the cost price of his shares,
and the offer was declined, with thanks.

It is a recorded fact that Silver Shield was reorganized within the
summer, to the end that the controlling interest passed from Colorado
to Chicago.

It is a recorded fact that, from afar out in the Rockies, there came to
Lieutenant Colonel Hazzard, Commandant of Cadets, a "wire" that puzzled
him not a little until he laid it before his clear-headed wife, who
gave him a delighted kiss and scurried away to show it to Mrs. Graham.
It read:

"You win. I lose; and, losing, am a heavy winner."

For Bonner had supplied the money that paid for much of that costly
plant, most of which would have gone up in smoke and down in ruin could
the mob have had its way. Bonner himself had rushed out to Denver at
news of the trouble. Bonner sent for Cawker and Nolan, and others of
the employes, and learned for himself how things had been going, and
was not too civil to Stoner and his Denver colleagues. Bonner, a
director in the Transcontinental, heard from Anthony and Cullin all
about the young fireman they spirited up to the mines, and the elder
Breifogle had to hear how that young fireman cared for the battered son
and heir, after his "beating up" at the fists and feet of the rioters,
and if Breifogle bore no love for the Grahams, he at least loved his
own.

It is a recorded fact that old Shiner got well of his wound after many
long weeks, and his brave boy in much shorter time, and that both were
handsomely rewarded. Cawker came in for a good thing by way of a raise,
but it was Long Nolan whom Bonner and the magnates set on a
pinnacle--Long Nolan, and, as Nolan would have it, Nolan's young
commander.

It is a matter of record that when Captain Lee went back to the
regiment he congratulated Lane, for one thing, on having held