lcolm Weston.

He had organized two or three glittering bubbles before the firm of
Weston & Hill was established, but from lack of capital failed to reap
the hoped-for reward. Then along came Hill, a retired manufacturer,
whose history shall be given in due time, who had more money than brains
and more conceit than either. Weston, a shrewd and smooth-tongued
schemer, reading Hill at a glance, was not long in flattering that
gullible man into a partnership and taking him and his money into camp,
as it were. For a time, and while Winn Hardy was serving apprenticeship,
the firm conducted a fairly honest and respectable business. They bought
and sold stocks and bonds of all kinds, that is, they sold and then
bought to fill orders only,--a species of commission business perfectly
safe, but not satisfying to Weston. He longed to soar, to organize a
great scheme, a glittering bubble, to see his name in print as a king of
finance, and do it on other people's money--and Hill's.

Then one day, while off with his broker, Simmons, on the latter's steam
yacht, visiting various north coast islands, the impulse culminated.

"Why not buy one of these islands," said Simmons, "and start a quarry
company? You can buy one for a song and a granite-quarrying industry
_sounds_ safe and will catch the cautious. I am intending to build a
fine residence in the near future, and you can furnish me the stone. In
return, I'll market stock enough to pay for it. We can find an island
with a harbor and buy it, or a part, which is all that is needful, and
you can do the rest." And thus the scheme was hatched, and when J.
Malcolm Weston, the to-be great financier, returned to the city, he was
sole owner of Jess Hutton's unused quarry and the Rockhaven Granite
Company was born.

It took time, however, for Hill was a cautious man, holding on to his
purse-strings with the grip of death, and Weston must needs approach him
circuitously. Then there were outsiders to warm up, as it were, men of
some financial standing whose names were of value, to interest; a
charter to be obtained, and all the legal and business detail necessary
to the carrying out of a scheme to be attended to. It also needed all of
Weston's plausible arguments to perfect the plot, and summer came around
again before the conspiracy was ready to be launched. Then "the street"
was cautious, and knowing Weston's reputation in the past, was not
eager, or even willing, to buy this stock. At fir