“By God,” he suddenly exclaimed, a passion of self-reproach and memory overcoming him, “I can’t stand this! It was not right, not fair. I should not have waited so long. I should have acted long, long since. The cruelty—the evil! There is something cruel and evil in it all, in all wealth, all ambition, in love of fame—too cruel. I must get out! I must think no more—see no more.” And hurrying to the door and down the squeaking stairs, he walked swiftly back to the costly car that was waiting for him a few blocks below the bridge—that car which was so representative of the realm of so-called power and success of which he was now the master—that realm which, for so long, had taken its meaningless lustre from all that had here preceded it—the misery, the loneliness, the shadow, the despair. And in it he was whirled swiftly and gloomily away. IX PHANTOM GOLD You would have to have seen it to have gathered a true impression—the stubby roughness of the country, the rocks, the poverty of the soil, the poorness of the houses, barns, agricultural implements, horses and cattle and even human beings, in consequence—especially human beings, for why should they, any more than any other product of the soil, flourish where all else was so poor? It was old Judge Blow who first discovered that “Jack,” or zinc, was the real riches of Taney, if it could be said to have had any before “Jack” was discovered. Months before the boom began he had stood beside a smelter in far-off K—— one late winter afternoon and examined with a great deal of care the ore which the men were smelting, marveling at its resemblance to certain rocks or boulders known as “slug lumps” in his home county. “What is this stuff?” he asked of one of the bare-armed men who came out from the blazing furnace after a time to wipe his dripping face. “Zinc,” returned the other, as he passed his huge, soiled palm over his forehead. “We have stuff down in our county that looks like that,” said the judge as he turned the dull-looking lump over and considered for a while. “I’m sure of it—any amount.” Then he became suddenly silent, for a thought struck him. “Well, if it’s really ‘Jack,’” said the workman, using the trade or mining name for it, “there’s money in it, all right. This here comes from St. Francis.” The old judge thought of this for a little while and quietly turned away. He knew where St. Francis was. If this was so valuable that they could ship it all the way from southeast B——, why not from Taney? Had he not many holdings in Taney? The result was that before long a marked if secret change began to manifest itself in Taney and regions adjacent thereto. Following the private manipulations and goings to and fro of the judge one or two shrewd prospectors appeared, and then after a time the whole land was rife with them. But before that came to pass many a farmer who had remained in ignorance of the value of his holdings was rifled of them.