Back in the days when John Barclay had become powerful enough to increase the price of his door strips to the railroad companies from five dollars to seven and a half, he had transferred the business of the factory that made the strips from Hendricks' Exchange National to the new Merchants' State Bank which Gabriel Carnine was establishing. For Carnine and Barclay were more of a mind than were Barclay and Hendricks; Carnine was bent on getting rich, and he had come to regard Barclay as the most remarkable man in the world. Hendricks, on the other hand, knew Barclay to the core, and since the quarrel of the seventies, while they had maintained business relations, they were merely getting along together. There were times when Barclay felt uncomfortable, knowing that Hendricks knew much about his business, but the more Carnine knew, the more praise Barclay had of him; and so, even though Jane kept her own account with Hendricks, and though John himself kept a personal account with Hendricks, the Economy Door Strip Company and the Golden Belt Wheat Company did business with Carnine, and Barclay became a director of the Merchants' State Bank, and greatly increased its prestige thereby. And Bob Hendricks sighed a sigh of relief, for he knew that he would never become John Barclay's fence and be called upon to dispose of stolen goods. So Hendricks went his way with his eyes on a level and his jaw squared with the world. And when he knew that Jane knew the secret of his soul, about the only comfort he had in those black days was the exultation in his heart that John--whatever he might know--could not turn it into cash at the Exchange National Bank.