e the
whip hand of us. We'll admit that right away, and we're quite prepared
to face any reasonable tax you and Wannop may think fit to exact.
Still, it might be wiser to be reasonable."

"How much do you want?" Stirling asked.

They told him how many shares, and Stirling appeared to consider.

"Well," he said, "what are you going to offer?"

One wrote something on a strip of paper and handed it to the other,
who nodded, and made an offer.

"That's our idea," he said. "I don't mind admitting that it will cost
us twenty cents on the dollar."

"No," said Stirling, "it's going to cost you just whatever I like to
call it. I can swing every dollar that stock stands for up to two or
three. Will you do me the favor to glance at that certificate?"

Wannop handed it to the nearest man, and the latter's face fell.

"Now," said Stirling, "at the moment, you're the only people anxious
to buy; but I've only to send that certificate and a nicely worked-up
account of the rich new find around to the press, and everybody with a
dollar to spare will be wanting Grenfell stock. Still, there'll be no
shares available--I've made sure of that. I'll ask you, as men with
some knowledge of these matters, where's the price going to?"

One of the men sat down limply.

"What'll you take to hold the thing over until after settling day?" he
asked.

"In money?" inquired Stirling, whose face grew hard. "If you put it
that way, we'll call it half your personal estate."

The second man, who saw that his companion had been injudicious,
hastily broke in.

"No," he said; "in the shape of mutual accommodation. Perhaps there's
some little arrangement you might like us to make."

Stirling laughed, "Anyway, why should you want to make an offer of
that kind? Suppose I held the certificate over, it wouldn't straighten
things out for you. You have to deliver to the people who acted on my
behalf so much Grenfell stock, and you can't get it--now."

"That's true," was the dejected answer. "What are you going to do?"

"That," said Stirling, grimly, "is a matter that must stand over until
I can send for the man who found the Grenfell mine. I can't tell you
what course he's likely to adopt, but in the meantime I'd like to
point out just how you stand. You set in motion the laws of supply and
demand to break a struggling man. They're the only ones you recognize;
but, as it happens, they're immutable laws that work both ways, and
you're hard up against