of fish racks, or road making, that they had one and all come to hate
their very sight. In their estimation they were a nuisance and a curse,
and for any sane man to buy twenty acres of ledge to quarry and
transport five hundred miles, seemed worse than folly.

Then, having given due expression to this common sentiment, and
congratulating Jess upon his good luck, they shook hands with him and
went their way. And when the sound of their footsteps upon the one
narrow plank walk of Rockhaven had ceased, and only the murmur of the
near-by ocean was heard, Jess, as was his wont when lonesome, drew his
old brown fiddle from its hiding place and sought consolation from its
strings. And also, as usual, the melodies were the songs of Bonnie
Scotland.

CHAPTER II

WINN HARDY

Winn Hardy, born and reared where the tinkle of the cow bells on the
hillside pastures, or the call of the village church bell on Sunday was
the most exciting incident, and a crossroads schoolhouse the only temple
of learning, reached the age of fourteen as utterly untainted by
knowledge of the world as the birds that annually visited the old farm
orchards. And then came a catastrophe in his life which ended in two
freshly made graves in the village cemetery, and he was thrust into the
whirl of city life, to make his home with a widowed aunt, a Mrs.
Converse, who felt it her duty to complete his education by a two years'
course at a business college.

It was a scant educational outfit with which to carve his way to fame
and fortune, but many a man succeeds who has less, and Winn might have
been worse off.

He had one unfortunate and serious fact to contend with, however, and
that was a mercurial disposition. When the world and his associates
seemed to smile, he soared amid the rosy clouds of optimism, and when
things went wrong, he lost his courage.

His first step in wage-earning (a menial position in a store, with
scanty pay which scarce sufficed to clothe him) soon convinced him how
hard a task earning a livelihood was, and that no one obtained a penny
unless he fought for it. Then through the influence of his aunt, he
obtained an easier berth as copy clerk in the office of Weston & Hill,
whose business was the investing of other people's money, and while his
hours of service were less, his pay was no better. Three years of this
resulted in slow advancement to a junior bookkeeper's desk and better
pay. It also broadened his list of acqu