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