He hung up the 'phone and turned to the letters and telegrams that were strewn about the desk. There were notices from the bank and frantic demands that he put up more margin on his stock and a peremptory announcement that his loans had been called and must be taken up by the next day at noon—and a letter from Mary Fortune. He thrust it aside and searched again for some letter or telegram from L. W., and then he snatched up hers. There was something wrong and her letter might explain it—it might even contain his check.
He tore it open and read the first line and then the world turned black. The dividend had been passed! He hurled the letter down and struck it with his fist. Passed! He turned on his clerk and motioned him from the room with the set, glassy stare of a madman. Passed! And just at the time when he needed the money most! He picked up the letter and read a little further and then his hand went slack. She had voted against him—it was her vote and Stoddard's that had carried the day against L. W.! He dropped the letter into a gaping wastebasket and sat back grinding his teeth.
"Damn these women!" he moaned and when Buckbee found him he was still calling down curses on the sex. In vain Buckbee begged him to pull himself together and get down to figures and facts, he brushed all the papers in a pile before him and told him to do it himself. Buckbee made memoranda and called up the bank, and then called up Stoddard himself; and still Rimrock sat cursing his luck. Even when Buckbee began to read the final statement his mind was far away—all he heard was the lump sum he owed, a matter of nearly a million.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said, when Buckbee came to an end, "I'll fix it so you don't lose a cent. But that bank is different. They sold me out to Stoddard and peddled me my own stock twice. Now don't say a word, because I know better—it was like Davey Crockett's coonskin, that he kept stealing from behind the bar. They take my stock for security and then hand it to Stoddard and he sells it over to you, and by the time we get through Stoddard has still got the stock and I owe the bank a million. Those may not be big words but that's what's happened, like Crockett buying the drinks with his coonskin; but if they collect from me they'll have to sue. Now how can I fix it for you?"
"Well, just raise the money to meet my shortage—it's a matter of nearly six hundred thousand."
"All right," said Rimrock, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I just got some bad news from the mine. That big dividend that I absolutely counted on to meet all those obligations was held up—it wasn't passed. But here's the point: the money is still there, right in old L. W.'s bank; the only question is how to get it out. You show me how I can borrow on that tied-up dividend and I'll pay you back every dollar."
"The easiest thing in the world!" exclaimed Buckbee. "All you have to do is to put up your Tecolote stock."
"Nothing doing," said Rimrock, "show me some other way. You fellows know all the tricks."
"No, there's no other way," responded Buckbee earnestly. "That's the only way you can touch it, until the dividend is declared. The surplus in the bank is regarded in law simply as increasing the value of the shares; and so all you have to do is to prove its existence and put up your stock as security."
"And then, if I don't pay it back, the bank will keep my stock!" Rimrock stated it guardedly, but his eyes were snapping and his mouth had become suddenly hard. "Don't you ever think it!" he burst out. "I don't put up that stock! No, by grab, not a single share of it, if I lose every cent I've got and leave my best friend in the hole! Do you know what I think?" he demanded portentously as he shook his finger under Buckbee's nose. "I believe every doggoned woman and broker in the whole crooked city of New York is working for—Whitney—H.—Stoddard!"