ese swindlers to catch the unwary, that some offered
stock for five cents a share, and non-assessable at that. Never before
had Winn realized that schemers could descend to such pitiful methods as
to issue, sign, and keep record of stock at a nickel a share! A trap to
catch even newsboys!

Turning in disgust to the column of market gossip, he read the
following: "Out of the multiplicity of investment organizations now
crowding each other on all sides, a late one, the Rockhaven Granite
Company, has forged to the front, its stock having crept up from one to
fourteen dollars per share. But little is known of this company, and
conservative investors believe the unusually rapid advance in its stock
solely due to manipulation."

In this great human hive and on the pages of this leading newspaper the
million-dollar scheme of Weston & Hill was only entitled to one line in
the list of quotations and a five-line news item.

And Winn thought himself and his troubles to be of small concern.

But his troubles enlarged rapidly when Jack Nickerson came to his room
later on.

"Well, old man," said that cheerful sceptic, looking Winn over, "you
don't seem to have the odor of fish or any barnacles about you. You have
had a hair cut, I see; and now if you will visit a tailor, you will soon
be one of us again."

"Yes," laughed Winn, sarcastically, "I'm back where clothes make the man
and put thieves and honest men on the same footing. But how is Rockhaven
coming on?"

"It's not only coming, but it is here,--at least its only honest
supporter is," answered Jack. "Where is your old fiddling friend,
Hutton? I expected you would bring him along to look us swindlers over."

"No, I left him down at Rockhaven at peace with all the world and
philosophizing on human depravity," answered Winn; "he would be as much
out of place here as you would be there."

"Well, you'd best send for him, or else all the stock you sold on the
island," asserted Nickerson, "and do it now. Matters have reached a
climax, as I wrote you, and Page wants to 'do' old Simmons. We have held
your stock for that purpose, and we want all we can get besides. The
street is all short of it; and when they get scared, as they will soon,
and Simmons tries to unload on them, we propose to be in the dance.
Can't you wire the island?"

And Winn, once more in touch with the active life of the city, paused to
collect himself.

"I might wire Captain Roby," he said, "and reach t