“As soon as we’ve got in the clear”—Henderson’s chuckling tone came through the muffling curtain with new clearness—“we’ll spring the news about the mine having petered out completely. Then maybe she won’t smash! I tell you what, Cheadle! This manipulation is going to be investigated, all right; you run out and bring up some lunch, will you? While you’re gone, locate somebody you can trust, and have him spread the news that Apex Crown has petered out. Have it done at exactly two o’clock. “Dickover will get the wires hot in five minutes, and you can arrange for him to discover the truth at Tonopah. Wire somebody there that the mine’s busted and you are in Frisco.” “What’s the matter with your own men doing all this?” growled Cheadle suspiciously. “I’m doing the operating; I’ll be the first man under investigation. Can’t afford to take the risk, even to put a hole in Dickover’s bank-account, blast him! But you can do it. Put on those glasses and that line of talk you can assume, and you’ll get by. Don’t you know any one you can trust?” There was a moment of silence, then a chair was scraped back. “I know a guy,” returned Cheadle. “I guess it can be done safe enough. Two o’clock, eh?” Cheadle came through the curtained doorway and, without glancing at the prostrate Bowen, opened a wall-cabinet, took out his thick spectacles, and donned them. Then, as he took a step, he stumbled over Bowen’s feet. Catching at the wall to save himself from falling, he dislodged the wall-cabinet and sent a shower of toilet articles over the floor. Mr. Oliver Hazard Perry Cheadle cursed heartily and fluently. He even kicked the man from Tonopah in the ribs, but Bowen merely grunted and kept his eyes closed. Then Cheadle passed back into the next room. “Two o’clock, eh?” he repeated surlily. “Sure we’ll be clear by then?” “Leave that part of it to me,” said Henderson sharply. “We’ll be clear. But be sure to have the trick turned at two sharp! That ’ll give Dickover plenty of time to find the report is true, and to unload. I want to see him get a crimp, the big toad!” “Then at two she busts,” said Cheadle. “And hurry back here with the lunch. I’m getting hungry.” Cheadle grunted and a door slammed behind him. Bowen lay motionless, his head twisted so that he could idly survey the wreckage caused by Cheadle’s stumble. This final move of Henderson’s had removed his last hope. At three o’clock that afternoon Apex Crown would be known to all men as worthless—and the Apex Crown would be the property of Bob Bowen, of Tonopah! But it was Alice Ferguson that Bowen was chiefly thinking. Whose fault but his that her little patrimony would be wiped out? VIII—THE SMASH OF APEX CROWN. Slowly anger uprose again in Bowen’s soul. After all, the disaster that was upon him and upon Alice Ferguson was not primarily his own fault! It was due to the machinations, the fraud and trickery of Henderson.