e claims. Then the prices will soar, but you won't be in
on it. He's got you trimmed, and no mistake."

"But I don't see it!" came back Rimrock insistently. "I want every one
of those shares. And I've got the money--it ought to be here now--to pay
every cent I owe. Say, come on up, Buckbee, and help me straighten this
thing out--I was unexpectedly called away."

He hung up the 'phone and turned to the letters and telegrams that were
strewn about the desk. There were notices from the bank and frantic
demands that he put up more margin on his stock and a peremptory
announcement that his loans had been called and must be taken up by the
next day at noon--and a letter from Mary Fortune. He thrust it aside and
searched again for some letter or telegram from L. W., and then he
snatched up hers. There was something wrong and her letter might explain
it--it might even contain his check.

He tore it open and read the first line and then the world turned black.
The dividend had been passed! He hurled the letter down and struck it
with his fist. Passed! He turned on his clerk and motioned him from the
room with the set, glassy stare of a madman. Passed! And just at the
time when he needed the money most! He picked up the letter and read a
little further and then his hand went slack. She had voted against
him--it was her vote and Stoddard's that had carried the day against L.
W.! He dropped the letter into a gaping wastebasket and sat back
grinding his teeth.

"Damn these women!" he moaned and when Buckbee found him he was still
calling down curses on the sex. In vain Buckbee begged him to pull
himself together and get down to figures and facts, he brushed all the
papers in a pile before him and told him to do it himself. Buckbee made
memoranda and called up the bank, and then called up Stoddard himself;
and still Rimrock sat cursing his luck. Even when Buckbee began to read
the final statement his mind was far away--all he heard was the lump sum
he owed, a matter of nearly a million.

"Well, I'll tell you," he said, when Buckbee came to an end, "I'll fix it
so you don't lose a cent. But that bank is different. They sold me out
to Stoddard and peddled me my own stock twice. Now don't say a word,
because I know better--it was like Davey Crockett's coonskin, that he
kept stealing from behind the bar. They take my stock for security and
then hand it to Stoddard and he sells it over to you, and by the time we