many services in the little community. In
the prosperous days following the World War it added to its surplus
and paid fair dividends to scattered owners of limited shares. Its
service was appreciated by home folks; its prosperity attracted the
attention of Aaron Logan.

Logan, with limited capital and an alert mind, operated a petty loan
business. He traded for what-have-you. In the early twenties, he
exchanged his chips and whetstones for single shares of bank stock.
Arriving at a favorable status, he persuaded the bank directors to
enlarge the capital to absorb his petty loan business. In 1924, he
quit the "street" to accept a cushioned chair in the rear room of the
bank. His experience would add caution and prudence.

For, just now, the cattle business was slipping; prices were falling
below the cost of production. Home folks were not buying; the rescued
European nations forgot, as usual, their benefactor and dickered for
meager supplies of meats and grains at other marts. America's foreign
trade sank to a new low. Her thousands of merchant craft rocked
listlessly and rusted quickly in stagnant waters while the false
prophets of Mammon urged idle capital to pyramid a luring stock market
to a glorious peak and final crash.

The banks of America were the first to feel the pinch. Some waited too
long--waited to dole out to a frenzied public all available cash and
close the doors too late for solvency. But not so with the Bank of
Adot. Aaron Logan got his order for receivership before his public
went frantic and while cash was yet available. Under court order he
was proceeding to thaw out the frozen items of assets, and planned to
open the institution to those who would limit their withdrawals to
stated amounts. He made progress in these endeavors until he bumped
into the stone wall of the Barrow loan. Really, it wasn't a giant sum,
as such sums are rated in banking circles, but in the present instance
it represented the difference between opening a bank or keeping it
closed.

Aaron Logan had given the matter of this Bar-O affair much thought. He
had canvassed every available prospect. In all the community there
wasn't a person that would give a thin dime for a property with a
defiant oldster thereon, who would certainly kill or be killed if
possession was to be gained. And a killing was bad advertisement, a
poor prelude to opening a bank.

But in the very hour he planned to execute this last resort, a rank
outsi