lowed by the Colonel.

It was only when the Colonel had found Fitz's rubbers himself and had
turned up the collar of his coat and had made it snug around his
throat to keep out the snow, and had patted him three times on the
shoulder--he only showed that sort of affection to Fitz--and had held
the door open until both Fitz and Chad were lost in the gloom of the
tunnel, the wind having extinguished the lantern, that the Colonel
again resumed his seat by the fire.

"I must say I'm worried about Fitz, Major. He don't look right and he
don't act right"--he sighed as he picked up his pipe and sank into his
arm-chair until his head rested on its back. "I'm going to have him
see a doctor. That's what I'm going to do, and at once. Do you know of
a good doctor, Major?"

"Medicine won't help him, Colonel," I answered. I knew the dear old
fellow would not sleep a wink even in his own bed if the idea got into
his head that Fitz was ill.

"What will?"

"Money."

The Colonel looked at me in astonishment.

"What kind of money?"

"Any kind that's worth a hundred cents on the dollar."

"Why, what nonsense, Major, I'd take Fitz's check for a million."

"Klutchem won't."

"What's the scoundrel got to do with it?"

"Everything, unfortunately. Fitz is short of 10,000 shares of
Consolidated Smelting, and Klutchem and his crowd have got about every
share of it locked up in their safes. Some of Fitz's customers have
gone back on him, and he's got to make the fight alone. If smelting
goes up another fifteen points to-morrow Fitz goes with it. It's not a
doctor he wants, it's a banker. Cash, not pills, is what will pull
Fitz through."

Had a bomb been exploded on the hearth at his feet the Colonel could
not have been more astonished. He sat staring into my eyes as I
unfolded the story, his face changing with every disclosure; horror at
the situation, anger at the man who had caused it, and finally--and
this dominated all the others--profound sympathy for the friend he
loved. He knew something of the tightening of the grasp of a man like
Klutchem and he did not underestimate the gravity of the situation.
What Consolidated Smelting represented, or what place it held in the
market were unknown quantities to the Colonel. What he really saw was
the red flag of the auctioneer floating over the front porch of that
friend in Virginia whom the Bank had ruined, and the family silver and
old portraits lying in the carts that were to take