puzzled by it, until a light broke in on him.

"Perhaps it wasn't quite in keeping with the other thing, boys," he
admitted. "Give me some tobacco, one of you. Mine seems to have gone,
and I feel I'd like to sit quiet a minute or two."

The hand he thrust into his pocket came out through the bottom of it,
for the lower part of the jacket was torn and burned; but one of the
others produced a plug of tobacco, and when he had lighted his pipe
Weston leaned back somewhat limply against the side of the adit.

"Well," he said, "I suppose it was rather a crazy trick, but if we'd
been sensible we'd certainly have let the Grenfell Consolidated fall
into the hands of those city men."

Then he turned to the storekeeper with a deprecatory gesture.

"I'm sorry, Saunders, but you would try to hold me. You ought to have
known that you can't reason with a man in the mood that I was in
then."

Saunders grinned. "I wouldn't worry about the thing. If there isn't a
club handy the next time you feel like doing anything of that kind I'm
going to leave you severely alone."

Then, through the roar and crackle of the fire, they heard a heavy
crash, and one of the men nearest the mouth of the adit glanced at
Weston significantly.

"It's kind of fortunate you got through when you did," he said. "A big
branch has fallen right across your shack and broken it up."

CHAPTER XXX

DEFEAT

There had been trouble at the Board Meeting, and, now that it was
almost over, the directors of the Grenfell Consolidated sat in
dejected silence, listening to the animadversions of one of their
comrades. They did not agree with everything he said, but it scarcely
seemed worth while to raise minor objections, for they were willing to
admit that the situation was desperate.

"We should never have proceeded to allotment," he said. "I warned you
that the applications for our stock were quite insufficient to warrant
the flotation of the concern at the time, but you apparently lost your
heads over those specimens, and you overruled me. Now it's
unpleasantly evident that we cannot expect to go on much longer, and I
venture to predict a voluntary liquidation during the next few
months."

"It certainly looks like that," said one of the others, gloomily.
"Still, you might give us your reasons for counting on the thing, if
you have any."

The man laughed--a little harsh laugh that had in it a hint of
contempt for the intelligence of his colleagues.