Armstrong had fought hard to gain the trust of these people. He had expended untold energy and money to win their faith. He had felt them behind him, the thrust of their will and faith driving him onward with assured confidence. And now, now! They would see in the newspapers that he was out of Consolidated. Within a few short weeks or months they would find themselves helpless, prostrate, unable to prevent the looting. Their very faith in Consolidated would be used to rob them. It was not what they would think of him that so stung Armstrong, that stirred him into life and action, that wakened the numbed spirit in him. It was the thought of what would happen to them. He knew well what would happen, with Macgowan's smoothly accurate hand at the wheel. He saw Macgowan in a new light, now. Their fate would be as his own--betrayed before they knew it. And who would fight for them? A slow, bitter smile curled Armstrong's lips. "Who will fight for them? Who can fight for them? One man, who failed to put up a fight for himself. One poor dupe, smashed like a rotten reed, wrecked largely by his own folly! But, by the lord, I'll do it! My own hand is lost. I can't win back what I've thrown away. But I can fight for the people who trusted me." Then, for an instant, he faltered. Again a memory of the little things, the tricks and sly snares, rose up to jeer at him. He recalled now how insistently Macgowan had prevented his bringing Robert Dorns into the affair of that Seattle letter--with good reason! Dorns would have discovered the truth, would have spoiled all the culminative effect of Macgowan's carefully planned surprise blow. And how smoothly had Macgowan averted that danger, only to go to Washington and start his campaign? So, Armstrong faltered. How could he fight, after all? He was alone, powerless, stripped of all connection with Consolidated. He had even agreed to sell his stock to Macgowan; unless he broke this agreement, he had nothing to fight with. A struggle now would mean battle to the death, without quarter; a battle of lies and deceit and powerfully entrenched men against one man who had nothing at his back. Nothing? Ah! This one man had behind him the faith of sixteen thousand people. Was that a little thing? "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed ... nothing shall be impossible!" Suddenly Armstrong rose to his feet, laughed almost happily, and glanced at his watch. He crossed the room to the wall telephone. Three minutes later he had declared war. CHAPTER IV Late in the afternoon of this same fateful Wednesday, Armstrong sat across the desk from that hard-jawed, hard-eyed old man, head of the Dorns Detective Agency, and told his story.