f rock protruded,
and the blue background of the mountains, afforded a scene to charm her
artist soul, and daring and more daring were the splashes of colour
which she committed to canvas in her attempt to catch the moods of
light and shade that played over such a landscape. And if she did not
speak of love with her lips, she had eyes. . . .

The gradual shrinkage of values to the vanishing point imposed upon
Dave many business duties which he would very gladly have evaded. The
office of Conward & Elden, which had once been besieged by customers
eager to buy, was now a centre of groups no less eager to sell; and
when they could not sell they contrived to lay the blame upon the firm
which had originally sold to them. Although, for the most part, these
were men and women who had bought purely from the gambler's motive,
they behaved toward the real estate dealer as though he had done them
an injustice when the finger of fortune turned up a loss instead of a
profit. For such people Dave had little sympathy, and if they
persisted in their murmurings he told them so with becoming frankness.
But there were cases that could not be turned away with a sharp answer.
Bert Morrison, for instance. Bert had never mentioned her "investment"
since the occasion already recorded; she greeted Dave with the
sociability due to their long-standing friendship; and her calm
avoidance of the subject hurt him more than the abuse of all his irate
patrons. Then there was Merton, the widower with the sick lungs and
the motherless boy, who had brought his little savings to the West in
the hope of husbanding out his life in the dry, clear atmosphere, and
saving his son from the white death that had already invaded their
little family. With a cruelty almost unbelievable, Conward had talked
this man into the purchase of property so far removed from the city as
to possess no value except as farm land; and the little savings, which
were to ward off sickness and death, or, if that could not be, minister
modest comfort in the declining hours of life, had been exchanged for
property which, even at the time of the transaction, was valueless and
unsalable.

Merton had called on Dave with respect to his investment. Dave had at
first been disposed to tell him frankly that the property, for which he
had paid twenty dollars a foot, was barely worth that much an acre.
But a second look at the man changed his purpose.

"I know you were stung, Merton," he