everything. We were up in the gallery and, on the floor
below us, there were a whole lot of posts with signs; and a bunch of
the craziest men in the world were fighting around those posts. Fight?
They were tearing each other's clothes off, throwing paper in the air,
yelling like drunk Indians, knocking each other flat. It was so rough,
by George, it scared me; but Buckbee told me they were selling stocks.
There were thousands of dollars in every yell they let out, they talked
signs like they were deaf and dumb, and every time a man held up his
right hand it meant: Sold! And they wrote it down on a slip."

Rimrock paused in his description to make some hurried adjustments as
his machine slowed down to a stop, but after a hasty glance he burst
into a laugh and settled back in his seat.

"Well, what do we care?" he went on recklessly. "This desert is all
the same. We can sit right here and see it all, and when it comes time
to go back I'll shake the old engine up. But as I was telling you,
playing the stock market is all right if you've got some one to put you
wise."

"No, it isn't," she answered positively. "I've been there and I know."

"Well, listen to this then," went on Rimrock eagerly, "let me show you
what Buckbee can do. I dropped in at his office, after I'd received my
roll, and he said: 'Want to take a flier?'

"'Sure,' I said, 'here's a thousand dollars. Put it on and see how far
it will go.' Well, you can believe me or not, in three days' time he
gave me back over two thousand dollars."

He nodded triumphantly, but the woman beside him shook her head and
turned wearily away.

"That's only the beginning," she answered sadly, "the end is--what
happened to me."

"What was that?" he asked and she gazed at him curiously with a look he
did not understand.

"Well, you can see for yourself," she said at last, "this is the first
pleasure I've had for a year. I used to have a home with servants to
wait on me; and music, and society and all, and when my father died and
left me alone I might even then have kept on. But--well, I'll tell it
to you; it may make you stop and think the next time you meet one of
those brokers. My father was a judge and the ethics of his profession
prevented him from speculating in stocks, but he had an old friend, his
college classmate, who had made millions and millions on the Stock
Exchange. He was one of the most powerful financiers in New York and
when my father die