It climbed to two thousand, then to
three thousand; then to twice that figure. The money did not come, but I
was not disturbed. By and by that stock took a turn and began to gallop
down. Then I wrote urgently. Orion answered that he had sent the money
long ago--said he had sent it to the Occidental Hotel. I inquired for
it. They said it was not there. To cut a long story short, that stock
went on down until it fell below the price I had paid for it. Then it
began to eat up the margin, and when at last I got out I was very badly
crippled.

When it was too late, I found out what had become of Orion's money. Any
other human being would have sent a check, but he sent gold. The hotel
clerk put it in the safe and went on vacation, and there it had reposed
all this time enjoying its fatal work, no doubt. Another man might have
thought to tell me that the money was not in a letter, but was in an
express package, but it never occurred to Orion to do that.

Later, Mr. Camp gave me another chance. He agreed to buy our Tennessee
land for two hundred thousand dollars, pay a part of the amount in cash
and give long notes for the rest. His scheme was to import foreigners
from grape-growing and wine-making districts in Europe, settle them on
the land, and turn it into a wine-growing country. He knew what Mr.
Longworth thought of those Tennessee grapes, and was satisfied. I sent
the contracts and things to Orion for his signature, he being one of the
three heirs. But they arrived at a bad time--in a doubly bad time, in
fact. The temperance virtue was temporarily upon him in strong force,
and he wrote and said that he would not be a party to debauching the
country with wine. Also he said how could he know whether Mr. Camp was
going to deal fairly and honestly with those poor people from Europe or
not?--and so, without waiting to find out, he quashed the whole trade,
and there it fell, never to be brought to life again. The land, from
being suddenly worth two hundred thousand dollars, became as suddenly
worth what it was before--nothing, and taxes to pay. I had paid the
taxes and the other expenses for some years, but I dropped the Tennessee
land there, and have never taken any interest in it since, pecuniarily
or otherwise, until yesterday.

I had supposed, until yesterday, that Orion had frittered away the last
acre, and indeed that was his own impression. But a gentleman arrived
yesterday from Tennessee and brought a map showing that