f course you don't know!" replied Eells with a smile, "and
everybody knows you don't know; but your remarks are actionable and if
you don't shut up and go away I'll instruct my attorney to sue you."

"Oh, 'shut up,' eh?" repeated Wunpost after the crowd had had its laugh;
"you think I'm a blow-hard, eh? You all do, don't you? Well, I'll tell
you what I'll do." He paused impressively, reached down into several
pockets and pointed a finger at Eells. "I'll bet you," he said, "that
I've got more money in my clothes than you have in your whole danged
bank--and if you can prove any different I'll acknowledge I'm wrong by
depositing my roll in your bank. Now--that's fair enough, ain't it?"

He nodded and leered knowingly at the gaping crowd as Eells began to
temporize and hedge.

"I'm a blow-hard, am I?" he shouted uproariously; "my remarks are
actionable, are they? Well, if I should go into court and tell half of
what I know there'd be _two_ men on their way to the Pen!" He
pointed two fingers at Eells and Phillip Lapham and the banker saw a
change in the crowd. Public confidence was wavering, the cold fingers of
doubt were clutching at the hearts of his depositors--but behind it all
he sensed a trap. It was not by accident that Wunpost was on his corner
when the committee of citizens came by; and this bet of his was no
accident either, but part of some carefully laid scheme. The question
was--how much money did Wunpost have? If, unknown to them, he had found
access to large sums and had come there with the money on his person,
then the acceptance of his bet would simply result in a farce and make
the bank a byword and a mocking. If it could be said on the street that
one disreputable prospector had more money in his clothes than the bank,
then public confidence would receive a shrewd blow indeed, which might
lead to disastrous results. But the murmur of doubt was growing, Wunpost
was ranting like a demagogue--the time for a show-down had come.

"Very well!" shouted Eells, and as the crowd began to cheer the
committee adjourned to the bank. Eells strode in behind the counter and
threw the vault doors open, his cashier and Lapham made the count, and
when Wunpost was permitted to see the cash himself his face fell and he
fumbled in his pockets.

"You win," he announced, and while all Blackwater whooped and capered he
deposited his roll in the bank. It was a fabulously big roll--over forty
thousand dollars in five hundred an