Two days later I received a dispatch from Governor Sparks saying that a full-page advertisement of the Union Securities Company had appeared in the Nevada State Journal at Reno, offering Bullfrog Rush stock for subscription. The Governor protested vigorously against the sale of the stock. We had previously informed him as to the new conditions which prevailed at the mine.
I sent Peter Grant, one of Mr. Sullivan's partners in the Palace, to Dr. Lyman to protest. The answer came back that the Nevada State Journal advertisement was about to be reproduced in all the newspapers of big circulation throughout the East, and that the orders for the advertisements would not be canceled. Half an hour later Dr. Lyman entered the office with Mr. Grant. Mr. Grant looked nettled. Dr. Lyman glowered.
I bade Dr. Lyman take a chair.
"If you move a finger to stop me," he said, as he sat himself down before me, "I'll expose every act of yours since you were born and show up who the boss of this trust company is!"
Dr. Lyman was tall as a poplar and muscled like a Samson. He was fresh from the East, red-cheeked and groomed like a Chesterfield. I was cadaverous, desert-worn, office-fagged, and undersized by comparison. In a glove fight, Dr. Lyman could probably have finished me in half a round. But the disparity did not occur to me. The sense of injustice made me forget everything except Dr. Lyman's blackmailing threat. I jumped to my feet. Dr. Lyman backed up to the glass door. I aimed a blow at him. He backed away to dodge it. In a second he had collided with the big plate-glass pane, which fell with a crash. In another instant he recovered his feet, turned on his heel and ran. His face was covered with scratches, the result of his encounter with the broken plate glass. Several clerks who followed him, thinking he had committed some violent act, reported that he didn't stop running until he reached the end of a street 600 feet away.
"Oh," he gasped, "I never want to see such a look in a man's eyes again. I thought I saw him reach for a gun."
Such an idea was farthest from my mind, although I was very angry. Conscience had made a coward of the doctor.
I was quick to decide upon a course of action.
The position of the trust company was this: With the exception of Bullfrog Rush, we had a string of stock-market winners to our credit with the public. If we allowed Dr. Lyman to go ahead with his promotion of Bullfrog Rush, we should, unless we abandoned our rule to protect our stocks in the market, be compelled some day to buy back all of the stock he sold. The truth about the mine was bound to come out, and we stood before the public as its sponsors.
I decided that the trust company should refund the money paid in by stockholders of Bullfrog Rush and prevent Dr. Lyman from selling more stock.