minute, settled
back and nodded his head.

"Yes, you are," he said. "And furthermore----" He reached impulsively
for the roll of bills but she checked him by a look.

"No," she said, "I'm not asking for sympathy nor anything else of the
kind. I just want you to know that I've earned this stock and that
nobody here has been trimmed."

"That's right," he agreed and his eyes opened wider as he took her all
in, once more. "Say, was that the reason you were saving your money?"
he asked as he glanced at the ear-'phone. "Because if I'd a-known it,"
he burst out repentantly, "I'd never touched it--no, honest, I never
would."

"Well, that's all right," she answered frankly, "we all take a chance
of some kind. But now, Mr. Jones, since we understand each other,
don't you think we can afford to be friends?"

She rose smiling and back into her eye came that look he had missed
once before. It came only for a moment--the old, friendly twinkle that
had haunted his memory for months--and as Rimrock caught it he leapt to
his feet and thrust out his great, awkward hand.

"W'y, sure," he said, "and I'm proud to know you. Say, I'm coming
around again."

CHAPTER VIII

A FLIER IN STOCKS

It was as dazzling to Rimrock as a burst of sunshine to a man just come
up from a mine--that look in Mary Fortune's eyes. He went out of her
office like a man in a dream and wandered off by himself to think. But
that was the one thing he could not negotiate, his brain refused to
work. It was a whirl of weird flashes and forms and colors, like a
futurist painting gone mad, but above it all when the turmoil had
subsided was the thought of going back. He had told her when he left
her that he would come around again, and that fixed idea had held to
the end. But how? Under what pretext? And would she break down his
pretense with that smile?

Rimrock thought it over and it seemed best at the end to invite her to
take a ride. There were certain things in connection with their mine
which he wished very much to discuss, but how could he do it in the
hotel lobby with the Gunsight women looking on? Since his rise to
affluence one of them had dared to speak to him, but she would never do
it again. He remembered too well the averted glances with which they
had passed him, poor and ragged, on the street. No, he hated them
passionately as the living symbols of Gunsight fraud and greed; the
soft, idle women of those despicable parasite