It was a proud moment in the varied career of David Lannarck, midget and showman, as the little cavalcade gained the level land near Pinnacle Point after a strenuous half-hour on the hazardous trail that led up from Brushy Fork. He waved a cautious hand to a man and woman standing near a car parked in front of the cabin. Landy lifted Davy from his saddle, removed the bit from the colt's mouth, made an improvised halter out of his bridle and tied the reins to a sapling. The older horses were left standing with reins down. "Well! If it ain't my ole scatter-about-friend, James Madison Stark, in person!" cried Landy as he and Davy made their way to the car. "Now I know that winter is not two days away. Hi, Maddy! Howdy, Mis Carter! Must be big news in the wind, if you two hit Pinnacle Pint same time, same day. What's up?" "Maddy is anxious to see Mr. Welborn," Mrs. Carter replied gravely to Landy's facetious banter, "but I don't know how to get back to where that gas engine is chuffing. Welborn will have to come out here to Maddy, for the hoodlums over at Grand Lake have burnt his feet and tortured him until mind and body are a wreck." "Tell Sam to come out here," was Landy's command to Davy. "Well, somebody has shore mussed ye up a heap, en right in yer gaddin' about department," he added as he noted the bandaged feet and ankles of the old fellow. "Sandals and a crutch don't become ye at all, Oldtimer. Who's been disturbin' yer dogs that away?" "I got all that and a lot more, off the killer that built this cabin," said the oldster firmly, "and I want to warn this newcomer as to his threats to come over here and kill him." Welborn, accompanied by Davy, came through the arch and approached the car. He had never seen the oldster but had heard, in full, the story of his idiosyncrasies, his wanderings, and persistent research for the hidden mineral wealth of a vast and varied district. In his life's story there were no paragraphs that old Maddy was a hoarder of gold or a promoter or exploiter of things found. His research yielded amply for his needs. It was known that he owned the filling station and that his summer accumulations of mineral wealth was more than sufficient to meet the annual upkeep of that establishment. James Madison Stark's pleasures had been the joys of solitude rather than the raptures of vast accumulations. He preferred that the mineral wealth of earth remain in the veins of its native rock rather than be taken out en masse, to be later hoarded, manipulated, and juggled to create distress and poverty and want.