"She's at six," said Jeff, "but I've got her. They can't squeeze me."

A few days after that, the same criminal gang had her down further
than ever.

"They've got her down to three cents," said Jeff, "but I'm with her.
Yes, sir, they think they can shove her clean off the market, but
they can't do it. I've boughten in Johnson's shares, and the whole of
Netley's, and I'll stay with her till she breaks."

So they shoved and pushed and clawed her down--that unseen nefarious
crowd in the city--and Jeff held on to her and they writhed and
twisted at his grip, and then--

And then--well, that's just the queer thing about the mining
business. Why, sudden as a flash of lightning, it seemed, the news
came over the wire to the Mariposa Newspacket, that they had struck a
vein of silver in the Northern Star as thick as a sidewalk, and that
the stock had jumped to seventeen dollars a share, and even at that
you couldn't get it! And Jeff stood there flushed and half-staggered
against the mirror of the little shop, with a bunch of mining scrip
in his hand that was worth forty thousand dollars!

Excitement! It was all over the town in a minutes. They ran off a
news extra at the Mariposa Newspacket, and in less than no time there
wasn't standing room in the barber shop, and over in Smith's Hotel
they had three extra barkeepers working on the lager beer pumps.

They were selling mining shares on the Main Street in Mariposa that