the times than in the
Farleys. Father Caleb was to keep his finger on the pulse of the main
office, wiring Boston at the first sign of its weakening.

The junior metallurgical was in the thick of the June examinations when
the catastrophe befell. The brief story of it came to Tom in the first
dictated letter he had ever received from his father, and the tremulous
shakiness of the signature pointed eloquently to the reason. Chiawassee
Consolidated was out of blast--"temporarily suspended," in the pleasant
euphemism of the elder Farley; the force, clerical and manual, was
discharged, with only Dyckman left in the deserted South Tredegar
offices to answer questions; and the three Farleys, with Major Dabney,
Ardea and Miss Euphrasia, were to spend the summer in Europe.

Caleb wrote in some bitterness of spirit. Though the Gordon holdings in
the company, increased from time to time as the iron-master had
prospered, amounted to a little more than a third of the capital stock,
everything had been done secretly. The general manager's own notice of
the shut-down had come in the posted "Notice to Employees." When the
Farleys should leave, he would be utterly helpless; on their return they
could repudiate everything he might do in their absence. Meantime, ruin
was imminent. The affairs of the company were in the utmost confusion;
the treasury was empty, and there were no apparent assets apart from the
idle plant. Creditors were pressing; the discharged workmen, led by the
white coal-miners, were on the verge of riot; and Major Dabney's
royalties on the coal lands were many months in arrears.

Tom rose promptly to the occasion, and in all the stress of things found
space to wonder how it chanced that he knew instinctively what to do and
how to go about it. Before his information was an hour old a rush
telegram had gone to his father, asking from what port and by what
steamer the Farleys would sail; asking also that certain documents be
sent to a given New York address by first mail.

This done, he laid the exigencies frankly before the examiners in the
technical school, praying for such lenity as might be extended under the
circumstances. Since all things are possible for an honor-man, beloved
of those whose mission it is to grind the human weapon to its edge, the
difficulties in this field vanished. Mr. Gordon could go on with the
examinations until his presence was needed elsewhere; and after the
stressful moment was passed he