the desperate straits to which the Pacific Southwestern was reduced.

"We know all that, Mr. Ford," was the unyielding reply. "But granting it
to be the fact, don't you see the absolute futility of asking for
thirty-five millions additional capital at such a crisis?"

"No, I don't," said Ford stubbornly. "I know--as I can not explain to
you in detail in a half-hour interview--that this plan of mine can be
made successful. For two years, Mr. Colbrith, I have been the man on the
ground: no word that I am saying to you is speculative. Every clause of
the proposition has a carefully established fact behind it."

"No doubt it seems so to you," came the rasping voice from the
chair-depths. "But thirty-five millions!"--with a quavering gasp. "And
at a time when our earnings are falling off steadily and the stock is
going down day by day. It's--it's simply preposterous! I must really
decline to discuss it any further."

Ford had his packet of data in hand.

"I have all the exhibits here, carefully tabulated and condensed. Won't
you reconsider far enough to examine them, Mr. Colbrith?"

A thin white hand of negation and protest waved out of the depths of
the engulfing easy-chair.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Ford. I knew your father, and we were
great friends. You are like him," he added reminiscently. "He might have
died rich if he had gone into corn-buying with me when we were
graduated, as I wanted him to. But he was too enthusiastic. He wanted to