What of that? On
this day the double dividend would be declared, he assured himself.
The pinch of delivery would be on the shorts. They would be making
terms with him.

And then the thunderbolt struck. True to the rumor, Ward Valley levied
the assessment. Daylight threw up his arms. He verified the report
and quit. Not alone Ward Valley, but all securities were being
hammered down by the triumphant bears. As for Ward Valley, Daylight
did not even trouble to learn if it had fetched bottom or was still
tumbling. Not stunned, not even bewildered, while Wall Street went
mad, Daylight withdrew from the field to think it over. After a short
conference with his brokers, he proceeded to his hotel, on the way
picking up the evening papers and glancing at the head-lines. BURNING
DAYLIGHT CLEANED OUT, he read; DAYLIGHT GETS HIS; ANOTHER WESTERNER
FAILS TO FIND EASY MONEY. As he entered his hotel, a later edition
announced the suicide of a young man, a lamb, who had followed
Daylight's play.

What in hell did he want to kill himself for? was Daylight's muttered
comment.

He passed up to his rooms, ordered a Martini cocktail, took off his
shoes, and sat down to think. After half an hour he roused himself to
take the drink, and as he felt the liquor pass warmingly through his
body, his features relaxed into a slow, deliberate, yet genuine grin.
He was laughing at himself.

"Buncoed, by gosh!" he muttered.

Then the grin died away, and his face grew bleak and serious. Leaving
out his interests in the several Western reclamation projects (which
were still assessing heavily), he was a ruined man. But harder hit
than this was his pride. He had been so easy. They had gold-bricked
him, and he had nothing to show for it. The simplest farmer would have
had documents, while he had nothing but a gentleman's agreement, and a
verbal one at that. Gentleman's agreement. He snorted over it. John
Dowsett's voice, just as he had heard it in the telephone receiver,
sounded in his ears the words, "On my honor as a gentleman." They were
sneak-thieves and swindlers, that was what they were, and they had
given him the double-cross. The newspapers were right. He had come to
New York to be trimmed, and Messrs. Dowsett, Letton, and Guggenhammer
had done it. He was a little fish, and they had played with him ten
days--ample time in which to swallow him, along with his eleven
millions. Of course, they had been unloading on him a