“Only in stocks, and those I did not care to sell as they were then low and I thought they would rise. I found that Dr. Tangus had money to loan, and so I went to him.”
“Dr. Tangus!” cried Oliver, thinking of what was to come.
“Yes. He let me have the money and took a mortgage on this place. The money fell due last week, and yesterday I received a note from the doctor asking for payment.”
Oliver gave a groan. Was it possible his own doings had hurried Dr. Tangus’s actions?
“And you cannot pay him?”
“No. But I am ahead of my story. Time went on and I heard no more from the mine. I wrote to Mendix and to Barr, but received no reply. Then came a draft for four thousand dollars to pay for some more machinery Mendix had ordered. I paid the claim, but immediately sent word not to contract any more debts, as I would not pay them, and demanding an accounting.
“None came, and I sent an agent to San Francisco to find out how matters stood. At the end of two months I received word from this man, Bentwell, and also from Mendix, that the mine had become flooded with water, that it could not be drained, and that in making surveys of the place James Barr had been drowned.
“This news was so disheartening I knew not what to do. I was out twenty-four thousand dollars, and had not a thing to show for it. I was on the point of starting for California myself when a friend of Mendix appeared on the scene.
“This man had been out to the mine, and knew all about it. He said the Aurora was utterly worthless, that Mendix had at last found it so, and that the man had left in disgust for South America. Private creditors had levied upon such machinery as was above ground, and that I might as well give up all hope of ever receiving a dollar out of the thing.
“This news all but prostrated me; for in the meanwhile stocks here in the East were declining rapidly. I kept up as long as I could, but now it is no use to do so longer. As I said before, every dollar is gone.”