then the enterprise assumed such a bad odor that bystanders
fled and Mr. Stoner was forced to leave the state without his baggage.

This had been the nature of McWade's and Stoner's meeting; on the roof
of that swaying Pullman they laid the corner stone of their partnership.

Arrived at Wichita Falls, Stoner went into the field and McWade
obtained employment in a restaurant. It was a position of trust, for
upon him developed the entire responsibility of removing the traces of
food from the used dishes, and drying them without a too great
percentage of breakage. It kept McWade upon his feet, but, anyhow, he
could not sit with comfort, and it enabled him, in the course of a
week, to purchase a change of linen and to have his suit sponged and
pressed. This done, he resigned and went to the leading bank, where he
opened an account by depositing a check drawn upon a Chicago
institution for fifty thousand dollars. McWade made it a practice
always to have a few blank checks on hand. Airily, but in all
earnestness, he invited the Texas bank to verify the check at its
convenience.

So many were the strangers in Wichita Falls, so great the rush of new
customers, that the banks had no means of investigating their accounts
except by wiring at their own expense. This was Saturday afternoon,
which gave McWade two days of grace, so he pocketed his new pass and
check books, then mingled with the crowd at the Westland Hotel. He
bought leases and drilling sites, issuing local checks in payment
thereof--nobody could question the validity of those checks with the
evidence of fifty thousand dollars deposited that very day--and on
Sunday he sold them. By the time the Wichita Falls bank opened its
doors on Monday morning he had turned his last lease and had made ten
thousand dollars.

A few days later he and Stoner incorporated their first company. This
was at the height of the town-site boom, and within a few hours McWade
had sold the stock. Thereafter prosperity dogged the pair, and before
long they had made reputations for themselves as the only sure-fire
wildcat promoters in town. McWade possessed the gift of sidewalk
oratory; Stoner posed as the practical field man whose word upon
prospects was final. He it was who did the investigating, the
"experting"; his partner was the bally-hoo.

But competition grew steadily keener, other promoters followed their
lead, and it became necessary to introduce new and original methods of
gatherin