f be drawn into the whirlpool, and he could not escape the
feeling that, tossed as he was, high and dry upon the shore, he was
getting quite as good as he deserved.

"Yes, I'm busted!" he remarked to his friend Chittenden, the
stock-broker, as the two men paused before the office-door of the
latter. "It was the Race-Horse that finished me up. No, thanks, I won't
come in. A burnt child dreads the fire!"

"We're all cool enough now-a-days," Chittenden replied, shrugging his
shoulders. "Couldn't get up a blaze to heat a flat-iron!" and he passed
in to the office, with the air of a man whose occupation is gone.

As Wakefield turned down the street, his eye fell upon a stock-board
across the way, a board upon which had once been jotted down from day to
day, a record of his varying fortunes. He remembered how, a few months
ago, that same board showed white with Lame Gulch quotations. He
reflected that, while the price set against each stock had made but a
modest showing, running from ten cents up into the second dollar, a man
of sense,--supposing such a phenomenon to have weathered the
"boom,"--would have been impressed with the fact that the valuation thus
placed upon the infant camp aggregated something like twenty millions of
dollars. The absurdity of the whole thing struck Wakefield with added
force, as he read the solitary announcement which now graced the
board,--namely:

"To exchange: 1000 Race-Horse for a bull-terrier pup."

"Kind o' funny; ain't it?" said a voice close beside him.

It was Dicky Simmons, a youth of seedy aspect, but a cheerful
countenance, who had come up with him, and was engaged in the perusal of
the same announcement.

"Hullo, Simmons! Where do you hail from?"

"From Barnaby's ranch. I'm trying my hand at agriculture until this
thing's blown over!"

"Think it's going to?"

"Oh, yes! When the tide's dead low it's sure to turn!" and the old
hopeful look glistened in the boy's face.

"That's the case in Nature," Wakefield objected. "Nature hadn't anything
to do with the boom. It was contrary to all the laws."

"Oh, I guess Nature has a hand in most things," Dicky replied with
cheerful assurance. "Anyhow she's made a big deal up at Lame Gulch, and
those of us who've got the sand to hold on will find that she's in the
management."

"Think so?"

"Sure of it!"

"Hope you're right. Anyhow, though, I'd try the old girl on agriculture
for a while, if I were you. How's Barnaby doing,