Under that terrific blow, Bob Bowen felt himself going, and going fast. He lunged forward and caught Henderson about the body: A final great wave of strength surged into him, and he threw Henderson over his hip—an old wrestling trick. He saw the man drive head first into the wall—and saw no more. For the second time, his knees were loosened and black darkness engulfed his soul. When he wakened again, Bowen sat up and looked around dazedly, wondering at the deadly ache in his head. He remembered by slow degrees. He saw Henderson lying across the room, lying in a limp mass. He heard the man’s stertorous breathing. It was the deep, hard breathing of a man badly hurt. Slowly Bob Bowen came to his feet. Staggering, he came to the table, clutched the bottle of milk, poured the revivifying fluid down his throat. A deep sigh of satisfaction burst from him—and then he remembered. Two o’clock! How long had he lain senseless? With a groan, Bowen flung himself across the room to Henderson’s side. His fingers trembling, he drew out Henderson’s watch. It was two forty! A moment later, Bowen seized the telephone and gave the number of Gus Saunders. He waited, frantic with suspense, until he heard the broker’s voice. There might yet be hope! Cheadle might have made mistakes. “You, Bob? Good Lord!” Saunders’s tone sent his heart down. “We’ve been looking all over town for you—” “What’s your last report on Apex Crown?” cried Bowen hoarsely. “Has it broken—” “Broke all to smash at two o’clock. Last report was eight cents here and going down fast. Miss Ferguson is here. You’d better come down and settle up—” Bowen slammed the receiver on the hook. “Oh, hell!” he said simply. “Well, we’ll face the music!” IX—FEMININE INSTINCT. Bob Bowen sat in the private office of Gus Saunders at three fifteen. On the way down-town he had stopped at a doctor’s office and had had his head bound up. As he himself put it, a couple of days would see him able to butt into another wall. “And I’ve sure butted it this time,” he said with assumed cheerfulness, as he concluded his story. In the eyes of Alice Ferguson he read quick sympathy—sympathy, and something else that set his pulses to leaping. But he refused to meet her eyes. “I sure have,” he went on. “Where I made my mistake was in thinking that Henderson was—was—well, that he was something less than Henderson! My one consolation is that I knocked him out so effectually that he never got word to the unknown Charley to sell out. When the news of the real condition of the Apex Crown got abroad, and the market busted all to nothing, Henderson was still rocked in the cradle of the deep. It makes me feel better to think that that skunk went down with us! “But I’m only sorry for—for your sake, Miss Ferguson. I’m not worrying about my own money; but yours—” “Mine is safe,” said the girl, gazing at him with shining eyes. Bowen sat up a trifle straighter. “What?”