eep
with care, and as he waited for the conflict he tore off long strips of
paper and pinched them carefully into little square bits. Elwood
Buckbee smiled genially, but his roving eye rested fitfully on Mary
Fortune. He was a dashing young man of the Beau Brummel type and there
was an ease and grace in his sinuous movements that must have fluttered
many a woman's heart. But now he, too, sat silent and his appraising
glances were disguised in a general smile.

"Well, let's get down to business," began Rimrock, after the
preliminaries. "The first thing is to elect a new Director. Mr.
Buckbee here has been retired and I nominate Mary Fortune to fill the
vacancy."

"Second the motion," rapped out Stoddard and for a moment Rimrock
hesitated before he took the fatal plunge. He knew very well that,
once elected to the directorship, he could never remove her by himself.
Either her stock or Stoddard's would have to go into the balance to
undo the vote of that day.

"All in favor say 'Ay!'"

"Ay!" said Stoddard grimly; and Rimrock paused again.

"Ay!" he added and as Mary wrote it down she felt the eyes of both of
them upon her. The die had been cast and from that moment on she was
the arbiter of all their disputes.

They adjourned, as stockholders, and reconvened immediately as
Directors; and the first matter that came up was a proposition from
Buckbee to market a hundred million shares of common stock.

"You have here," he said, "a phenomenal property--one that will stand
the closest of scrutiny; and with the name of Whitney H. Stoddard
behind it. More than that, you are on the eve of an enormous
production at a time when copper is going up. It is selling now for
over eighteen cents and within a year it will be up in the twenties.
Within a very few months, unless I am mistaken, there will be a battle
royal in the copper market. The Hackmeister interests have had copper
tied up, but the Tecolote Company can break that combine and at the
same time gain an enormous prestige. There will be a fight, of course,
but this stock will cost you nothing and you can retain a controlling
share. My proposition is simply that you issue the common and divide
it pro rata among you, your present stock then becoming preferred.
Then you can put your common on the market in such lots as you wish and
take your profits at the crest. In conclusion let me say that I will
handle all you offer at the customary broker's charge."

H