“Hardly that, Joe. Unless there’s some skullduggery that report ought to be public property--public enough so that it could go into a prospectus. What’s the other paper?” McGlory opened the other document, and found it to be a letter from Colonel Billings, dated nearly a month previous. “It’s a letter from the colonel, Matt,” the cowboy announced, “and is addressed to Levitt. The colonel says he will not pay Levitt the balance due until Levitt sends him the private report on the ‘Pauper’s Dream’ proposition.” “Great spark plugs!” exclaimed Matt. “What’s strange about that?” demanded McGlory. “If Levitt made an examination of the property he certainly expects pay for it.” “But not from the colonel, Joe! Levitt was examining the mine for the syndicate, and he’s not entitled to any money from the colonel unless he’s doing shady work of some kind.” “Speak to me about that!” muttered McGlory. “It looks as though we’d grabbed a live wire when we got hold of this yellow envelope.” “I don’t like the way the business stacks up,” said Matt earnestly. “The owner of this troublesome runabout happens to be Hannibal J. Levitt, and he’s playing an unscrupulous double game. Glance through that report and give me the gist of it.” Eagerly--and a little apprehensively--McGlory looked through the private report. His face grew longer and longer as he read. “Sufferin’ poorhouses!” he cried at last. “Levitt says, in this report, that the ‘Pauper’s Dream’ isn’t a mine, but a pocket, and that the pocket has been worked out. In other words, pard, my hundred shares of stock are worth just about what they’ll bring for scrap paper. And the colonel had me worked up till I thought I was going to be a millionaire! Riddle: Where was Moses when the light went out?” McGlory fell back on the grass and kicked up his heels dejectedly. “Can’t you see through the dodge your Tucson colonel is working, Joe?” asked Matt. “Dodge?” echoed McGlory. “The ‘Pauper’s Dream’ is just a hole in the ground. We can’t any of us dodge that.” “The colonel,” went on Matt quietly, “is paying Levitt to make a false report to the syndicate. To-night the syndicate meets and decides whether or not it will buy the ‘Pauper’s Dream.’ Levitt’s false report has already been submitted, I suppose, and read. You show up at the meeting with the two bars of bullion, and a sworn statement from the colonel that they came out of the ten-stamp mill on the ‘Dream’ during one week’s run. That clinches the proposition. The syndicate, relying on Levitt’s honesty, and, incidentally, on the colonel’s, pay over a big sum for a worthless hole in the ground, and----” The cowboy leaped erect, flushed and excited. “And the colonel,” he cried, “divides the proceeds among the stockholders! That gives me a big profit on my five hundred. Oh, well, I reckon I’ve got my dipper right side up during this rain.” McGlory chuckled. Matt stared at him as though he hardly believed what he heard.