it or not, Blount would not fail to take advantage of this
last, staggering blow to his fortunes; and there were notes and paper
due which would easily serve as a pretext for a writ of attachment on
his mine. Bad news travels fast, but Wiley set out to beat it by
snatching at his one remaining chance. His mill was ruined, his output
was stopped, but he still had the ore underground--and the buyers were
crazy to get it. He sent out identical messages to ten big consumers
and then sat down to await the results. They came with a rush, ten
scrambling frantic bids for his total output for one year--and one of
them was for eighty-four dollars! It was from the biggest buyer of
them all, a man who was reputed to be the representative of a foreign
government, a man who had paid cash on the nail. Wiley pondered a
while, looked up his obligations to Blount, and accepted immediately
by wire. But there was one proviso--he demanded an advance payment,
which the buyer promptly wired to his bank. Then Wiley twisted up his
lip and waited.

Blount appeared the next day, dropping in casually as was his wont; but
there was a cold, killing look in his eye and he had a deputy sheriff as
a witness. They looked through the mill and Blount asked several leading
questions before he ventured to come to the point, but at last he
cleared his throat and spoke up.

"Well, Wiley," he said, drawing some papers from his pocket, "I'm sorry,
but I'll have to call your notes. If it were my money it would be
different; but I'm a banker, you understand, and your paper is long
overdue. I've extended it before because I admired your courage and
thought you might possibly pull through, but this accident to your mill
has impaired the property and I can't let it run any longer."

"Oh, that's all right," said Wiley, "but you don't need to apologize,
because there won't be any attachments and judgments. Just tell me how
much it comes to and I'll write you out a check." He took the notes from
Blount's palsied hand and spread them on the desk before him, but as he
was jotting down the totals Blount grabbed them wildly away.

"Not much!" he exclaimed, "I don't surrender those notes until the money
is put in my hands! Your check isn't worth a pen stroke!"

"Well, I don't know," returned Wiley. "There may be two opinions about
that. I had a hunch, Mr. Blount, that you might spring something like
this and so I made arrangements to accommodate you."

"But you're str