ance of Stacy's
impatient face. "Only all business is serious, Barker boy, though you
don't seem to feel it so."

"I reckon you're right there," said Barker, with a chuckle. "People
always laugh, of course, when I talk business, so it might make it a
little livelier for you and more of a change if I chipped in now. Only I
don't know which you'll do. Hand me a pipe. Well," he continued, filling
the pipe Demorest shoved towards him, "you see, I was in Sacramento
yesterday, and I went into Van Loo's branch office, as I heard he was
there, and I wanted to find out something about Kitty's investments,
which I don't think he's managing exactly right. He wasn't there,
however, but as I was waiting I heard his clerks talk about a drop in
the Wheat Trust, and that there was a lot of it put upon the market.
They seemed to think that something had happened, and it was going down
still further. Now I knew it was your pet scheme, and that Phil had a
lot of shares in it, too, so I just slipped out and went to a broker's
and told him to buy all he could of it. And, by Jove! I was a little
taken aback when I found what I was in for, for everybody seemed to have
unloaded, and I found I hadn't money enough to pay margins, but I knew
that Demorest was here, and I reckoned on his seeing me through." He
stopped and colored, but added hopefully, "I reckon I'm safe, anyway,
for just as the thing was over those same clerks of Van Loo's came
bounding into the office to buy up everything. And offered to take it
off my hands and pay the margins."

"And you?" said both men eagerly, and in a breath.

Barker stared at them, and reddened and paled by turns. "I held on," he
stammered. "You see, boys"--

Both men had caught him by the arms. "How much have you got?" they said,
shaking him as if to precipitate the answer.

"It's a heap!" said Barker. "It's a ghastly lot now I think of it. I'm
afraid I'm in for fifty thousand, if a cent."

To his infinite astonishment and delight he was alternately hugged and
tossed backwards and forwards between the two men quite in the fashion
of the old days. Breathless but laughing, he at length gasped out, "What
does it all mean?"

"Tell him everything, Jim,--EVERYTHING," said Demorest quickly.

Stacy briefly related the story of the forgery, and then laid the letter
and its copy before him. But Barker only read the forgery.

"How could YOU, Stacy--one of the three partners of Heavy Tree--be
deceived! Don'