ed
Pinkertons to meet any emergency that might arise. The spies of the
Consolidated were everywhere, gathering evidence against the Mesa
Ore-producing Company, its conduct of the senatorial campaign, its
judges, and its supporters Criminal indictments flew back and forth
thick as snowflakes in a Christmas storm.

It began to be noticed that an occasional foreman, superintendent, or
mining engineer was slipping from the employ of Ridgway to that of the
trust, carrying secrets and evidence that would be invaluable later in
the courts. Everywhere the money of the Consolidated, scattered
lavishly where it would do the most good, attempted to sap the loyalty
of the followers of the other candidates. Even Eaton was approached
with the offer of a bribe.

But Ridgway's potent personality had built up an esprit de corps not
easily to be broken. The adventurers gathered to his side were, for the
most part, bound to him by ties personal in their nature. They were
financial fillibusters, pledged to stand or fall together, with an
interest in their predatory leader's success that was not entirely
measurable in dollars and cents. Nor was that leader the man to allow
the organization he had builded with such care to become disintegrated
while he slept. His alert eye and cheery smile were everywhere,
instilling confidence in such as faltered, and dread in those
contemplating defection.

He harassed his rival with an audacity that was almost devilish in its
unexpected ingenuity. For the first time in his life Simon Harley, the
town back on the defensive by a combination of circumstances engineered
by a master brain, knew what it was to be checkmated. He had hot the
least doubt of ultimate victory, but the tentative success of the
brazen young adventurer, were gall and wormwood to his soul. He had
made money his god, had always believed it would buy anything worth
while except life, but this Western buccaneer had taught him it could
not purchase the love of a woman nor the immediate defeat of a man so
well armed as Waring Ridgway. In truth, though Harley stuck at nothing,
his success in accomplishing the destruction of this thorn in his side
was no more appreciable than had been that of Hobart. The Westerner
held his own and more, the while he robbed the great trust of its ore
under cover of the courts.

In the flush of success, Ridgway, through his lieutenant, Eaton, came
to Judge Purcell asking that a receiver be appointed for the