perate.

"Confound you!" he growled. "I stalled you until five minutes before the
bank closed, thinking you would deposit it in your own bank to-morrow
morning and I'd have a deposit to cover it by that time. It will be all
right first thing in the morning, Peasley."

"It had better be!" Matt told him bluntly. "Your charter provides for
cancellation in the event that payments are not made as stipulated, and
I'm not in a position to carry you or to take any chances on you--and
I'm not going to."

"I can't blame you a bit," Kelton answered regretfully. "I tell you,
with the money market as tight as it is, we're beating the devil
round the stump these days. Confound it, Peasley, a man has to do some
scheming and stalling when everybody is crowding him for money, doesn't
he?"

The check was not paid when Matt presented it the next morning. As he
came out of the bank a newsboy, crying his daily sensation, accosted him
with the first afternoon edition, and Matt's glance caught a smear of
red ink seven columns wide across the front page:

SHIPPING MAN A SUICIDE!

It was Morrow!

For about a minute Matt Peasley stood on the corner, doing some of the
fastest thinking he had ever done. Morrow had taken a short cut out
of his financial worries, and Matt realized that the tragedy would
undoubtedly bring an avalanche of creditors down on the unhappy Kelton
and ruin the firm. At any rate, the concern would doubtless go into the
hands of a receiver, and Matt Peasley might or might not hope for his
in the sweet by and by, according to the amount of salvage reported. The
Tillicum was seventy-six hours at sea!

"Matthew," Matt Peasley murmured to himself, "'theirs not to reason why,
theirs but to do and die'--and all in one thundering big hurry!"

CHAPTER XLI. WHEN PAIN AND ANGUISH WRING THE BROW

Cappy Ricks was having his siesta, with his feet on top of his desk,
when Matt Peasley came bounding in, seized him by the shoulder and shook
him wideawake.

"Well, young man," Cappy snapped querulously, "what's all the excitement
about?"

"Morrow has committed suicide, and I know the firm is in financial
difficulties. I'll not be able to collect now--I'll have to wait with
the rest of the creditors; and meantime the Tillicum, fully loaded, is
somewhere down off the Mexican coast. Good gracious, Mr. Ricks, there's
the very devil to pay!"

"We will, if you please, not include outsiders in this argument for t