rge Ingram, and his physical and mental
strength failed him at the wrong time, for his ship was now approaching
a cyclone on the financial sea.

Tariff matters had been drifting from bad to worse, politicians were
seeking to secure advantages for their constituents by changes in the
tariff schedule, speculation was running wild in the stock exchanges of
the country, cautious business men and bankers in the larger cities
discovered an ominous black cloud rising out of the horizon. Bank rates
of interest increased, more frequent renewals were made, deposits
dwindled, country bankers weakened, and financiers in the metropolis
were calling loans made to the interior. With the financial cyclone at
its height, the demands were so great upon The Harris-Ingram Steel Co.
that creditors threatened to close the steel plant.

The cry for help went up from the Harris-Ingram mills, but their trusted
leader was powerless. George Ingram lay insensible at death's door, the
victim of pneumonia. For a week, the directors of the steel company
struggled night and day with their difficulties. Gertrude could neither
leave the bedside of her dying husband, nor would she give her consent to
have the Harris-Ingram Experiment wrecked. She had already pledged as
collateral for the creditors of the steel company all their stock and
personal property, and had telephoned the directors to keep the company
afloat another day, if in their power.

The ablest physicians of the city were standing at George Ingram's
bedside in despair, as all hope of his recovery had vanished. Gertrude
stepped aside into her library, and was in the very agony of prayer for
help, when in rushed her brother Alfonso, whom the family believed dead.
He had come from California with his wife, and stopping at the company's
office, had learned of the terrible trouble of his family.

Lifting up his broken-hearted sister, who for a moment thought that
she had met her brother on the threshold of the other world, he kissed
Gertrude and said, "Be brave, go back to your husband, and trust your
brother to look after the steel company's matters."

Alfonso learned that one million dollars were needed at once to tide over
the company's affairs; he drew two checks, for five hundred thousand
dollars each, upon his banks in San Francisco and requested the creditors
to wire to the coast. Before two o'clock replies came that Alfonso
Harris's cheeks were good, and the only son of Reuben Harris