s to a fellow journalist. Yes! He had once owned
a newspaper--in Alaska. Incidentally, it was the farthest-north
publication in the world.

Alaska! The reporter pricked up his ears. He managed to elicit the fact
that Mr. Gray had operated mines and built railroads there; that he had
been forced into the newspaper game merely to protect his interests
from the depredations of a gang of political grafters, and that it had
been a sensational fight while it lasted. This item was duly jotted
down in the reportorial memory.

Alaska was a hard country, quite so, but nothing like Mexico during the
revolution. Mexican sugar and mahogany, it transpired, had occupied Mr.
Gray's attention for a time, as had Argentine cattle, Yucatan
hennequin, and an engineering enterprise in Bolivia, not to mention
other investments closer to home.

Once the speaker had become reconciled to the distasteful necessity of
talking about himself, he suggested an adjournment to his rooms, where
he would perhaps suffer less embarrassment by reason of his unavoidable
use of the personal pronoun.

Gray noted the effect upon his visitor of the Governor's suite and soon
had the young man at ease, with a Corona between his teeth. Then
followed a full three-quarters of an hour, during which the visitor
discoursed in his very best style and his caller sat spellbound, making
occasional hieroglyphic hen tracks upon his note paper and
congratulating himself upon his good luck in striking a man like this
in one of his rare, talkative moods. Gray had set himself deliberately
to the task of selling himself to this gentleman of the press, and,
having succeeded, he was enough of a salesman to avoid the fatal error
of overselling.

Alone at last, a sardonic grin crept over his features. So far, so
good. Now for the rest of those bankers and the mayor. Gray was working
rapidly, but he knew no other way of working, and speed was essential.
It seemed to him not unlikely that delay of the slightest might force
him to turn in desperation to a length of lead pipe and a mask, for--a
man must live. As yet he had no very definite plans, he had merely
undertaken to establish himself in a position to profit by the first
opportunity, whatever it might be. And opportunity of some sort would
surely come. It always did. What is more, it had an agreeable way of
turning up just when he was most in need of it.

Gray called at several other banks that morning. He strode in swiftly,