"Exactly."
"What are we to do?"
"Before coming here I've been to see the Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale Society about taking some of your wheat. Fisher is ready to help you out if he finds he's not overstepping the rules of the Exchange. I may be able to carry you along for a short time if you three gentlemen, the Executive of your company, will give the bank your personal bond without limit as to the amount. I have even gone so far as to draw up the document for signature, if it meets with your approval."
"What about that, Kennedy? Spencer?"
"Guess we've got to do it," nodded Kennedy.
"Looks like it," agreed Spencer.
"Then—down she goes!" decided Partridge, dipping his pen in the ink.
The others signed after him.
"That means we three go down with the ship," he remarked quietly after the door had closed upon the bank manager. "I appreciate you two fellows signing that thing." He got up and shook hands with each of them in turn. "If bad gets worse and we go to smash——"
"It can't get worse and we're not going to smash," reassured the others.
But that remained to be seen. Although placing grain in the East was robbing them of profits, it was the best that could be done to tide things over. The three active officials were on the anxious seat from morning till night. It had got down now to a question of meeting each day's events as they came and frequently the lights blazed in the little office till two and three in the morning while the provisional officers raked the situation from every angle in an endeavor to forecast the next day's difficulties and to prepare for them.