"Are you sure of that, Mr. Gibson?"
"I am positive of it. I have the proofs. Even without those proofs, my unsupported word would substantiate the charge. The more so, because I helped him do it."
[CHAPTER XXXI--A REMARKABLE CONFESSION]
"You helped Gasper Farrington rob my father!" exclaimed Ralph.
"Yes," answered Gibson unhesitatingly.
Ralph wondered how he could make the admission thus boldly and unblushingly. Gibson, however, acted like a man who had taken a desperate stand with an important end to attain, and for the time being at least had set aside all questions of sentiment and conscience.
"It will be brief," said Gibson, after a pause. "When the Great Northern was on its first boom and everybody gone wild to invest in its bonds, I caught the fever too. My wife had died and I had no children, and converting my land into cash I came up to Stanley Junction with thirty thousand dollars in my pocket. I was always stuck on railroading. I fancied myself a director, riding in the president's car and distributing free passes to my friends. In a black moment in my life I ran afoul of Gasper Farrington. He took me under his wing and encouraged my visionary ideas. At that time your father had twenty thousand dollars in Great Northern bonds. They were not all paid for, but nearly so. They were, in fact, held by a bank as trustee in what is known as escrow--that is, subject to his call on payment of the small sum still due on them. Your father had great confidence in Farrington. So had I. I put my capital in his hands."
Gibson became so wrought up in his recital that he could not sit still. He got up and paced the floor.
"If we had kept to a straight investment, your father and I," proceeded Gibson, "we would have been all right. But Farrington dazzled us with his stock-jobbing schemes. He actually did let us into a deal where by dabbling in what is called margins we increased our pile considerably. In about a month, however, he had us where he wanted us. That is, he had our affairs so mixed up and complicated that neither of us knew just where we stood, and didn't dare to make a move without his advice. For some time we had all been dabbling in Midland Central securities. One day, after he had got me to buy a big block of that stock, the market broke. I was a pauper."
"Had Mr. Farrington lost too?" inquired Ralph.