scheme in my head of going to
Detroit or Chicago for the money. But I knew it was no use--and so did
Orcutt. He thought he had me right where he wanted me--an' so did I.
Meanwhile, an' about six months previous, a young fellow named Charlie
Bronson--president of the First National now--had opened up a little
seven-by-nine bank in a tin-covered wooden shack that I'd passed a
dozen times a day an' hadn't even looked into. I'd met Bronson once or
twice, but hadn't paid no attention to him, an' as I was headin' back
for the store, he stood in his doorway. 'Good mornin' Mr. McNabb,' he
says. I don't think I'd of took the trouble to answer him, but just
then his bank sign caught my eye. It was painted in black letters an'
stuck out over the sidewalk. I stopped an' looked past him through the
open door where his bookkeeper-payin'-an'-receivin'-teller-cashier, an'
general factotum was busy behind the cheap grill. Then I looked at
Bronson an' the only thing I noticed was that his eyes was brown, an'
he was smilin'. 'Young man,' I says, 'have you got any money in that
sardine can?'

"'Quite a lot,' he answers with a grin. 'More than I wish I had.'

"'You got a hundred thousand?' I asks--it was more than I needed, but I
thought I'd make it big enough to scare him.

"'More than that,' he answers, without battin' an eye. 'But--what's
the matter with the Wolverine?'

"'The Wolverine?' I busted out. 'Young man, if I was to tell you what
I think of the Wolverine here on the street, I'd be arrested before I'd
got good an' started.'

"'Better come inside, then,' he grins, an' I followed him into a little
box of a private office. 'Of course,' I says later, when I'd told him
what I wanted, 'most of my collateral is pine timber, an' I suppose, as
Orcutt says, it's depreciated----'

"'Depreciated?' he asks. 'Why has it depreciated? It's all standin'
on end, ain't it?' he says. An' it ain't gettin' no smaller, is it?
An' they're layin' down the pine a damn sight faster than God Almighty
can grow it, ain't they?' An' when I admitted that such was the facts,
he laughed. 'Well then, we'll just go over your reports an' estimates,
an' I don't think we'll have any trouble about doin' business.'

"An we never have had no trouble, an' we've been doin' business every
day since."

"But the coat?" reminded Hedin, after an interval of several minutes.

"I'm coming to that. Orcutt ain't human, but his wife is. When he
found