r orders. He and Flood
had bought an interest in Virginia City ... "a few fate only, but it's
goin' t' make us rich, me lad," he said enthusiastically as he set their
glasses out upon the bar. "We'll all be nabobs soon. Ain't that the
God's truth, Mr. Ralston?"

"Sure, my boy," a deep voice answered heartily. Windham turned and saw a
man of forty, tall, well-molded, with a smiling forceful countenance. He
seemed to smack of large affairs.

Benito sipped his liquor, listening absorbedly while Ralston rattled off
facts, figures, prospects in connection with the Comstock lode.

"The Nevada mines will pay big," Benito heard him tell a group of
bearded men who hung upon his utterances. "BIG! You can bet your bottom
dollar on it. If you've money, don't let it stay idle."

Benito bade his friend good-bye and went out, thinking deeply. He
wondered what Alice would say if....

Nesbitt of The Bulletin interrupted his musing. "Heard the news, Benito?
We're to have a stock exchange next month."

"The brokers are opposed to it. They don't want staple values, because,
now and then, they can pick up a bargain or drive a hard trade. And they
can peddle 'wildcat' stocks to tenderfeet.... We must stop that sort
of thing."

"Quite so," said Windham vaguely comprehending. Nesbitt babbled on.
"There are to be forty charter members, with a fund of $2000."

He took a pencil from his pocket. Tapped Benito's shirt front with it.
"Buy a little Gould and Curry.... I've just had a tip that it will
rise." He hurried on.

* * * * *

Windham let his clients wait that afternoon. He took a walk toward Twin
Peaks on Market street. That lordly, though neglected, thoroughfare
began to make pretensions toward commercial activity. Opposite
Montgomery street was St. Ignatius Church. Farther down toward the docks
were lumber yards and to the west were little shops, mostly one-storied,
widely scattered. Chinese laundries, a livery stable or two. The
pavements were stretches of boardwalk interspersed with sand or mud,
trodden into passable trails. Down the broad center ran a track on which
for years a dummy engine had labored back and forth, drawing flat cars
laden with sand. Now most of the sand hills were leveled above Kearny
street. Benito picked his way along the northern side of Market street
till he came to Hayes. There the new horse car line ran to Hayes park.
One was just leaving as he reached the corner, so he