On September 23 the Goldfield Consolidated directorate met at Goldfield. After the meeting it was officially announced that the option held by Mr. Baruch on 1,000,000 shares at $7.75 had been canceled and that Mr. Baruch had been given sufficient of the optional stock to liquidate the $1,000,000 obligation of the company, leaving the company free of debt and with a cash reserve of nearly $2,000,000. It was stated that Mr. Baruch had originally been given the option for services in securing the loan of $1,000,000 from J. Kennedy Todd & Company of New York for 13 months with interest at the rate of 6 per cent., and that the price of $7.75 was an "average" one, indicating that Mr. Baruch held an option on stock at varying figures on a scale up from a considerably lower price than $7.75, which he might have exercised in whole or in part. It was also disclosed that a large block of Goldfield Consolidated stock had been put up as collateral for the note. Because the officials of the company declared by resolution that the "unused certificates shall be canceled" it was generally believed that the entire 1,000,000 shares under option to Mr. Baruch had been put up as security. The official statement of the company said that the option had been turned back to the company "on a satisfactory basis." No figures were given out. Dispatches from San Francisco to the _Nevada Mining News_, which I promptly published, alleged that Mr. Baruch was given 200,000 or more shares of Goldfield Consolidated in settlement of the loan to the corporation of $1,000,000 and for the surrender of his option on 1,000,000 shares at an average price of $7.75. _The 200,000 shares of stock was taken out of the collateral at the rate of $5 per share on a day when Goldfield Consolidated was selling around $7.50, after the stock had been manipulated to a fare-ye-well and against a market price of $10 for the stock on the day the option was given._ No denial was ever published. My opinion, based on private investigation and on analysis of the company's reports, is that Mr. Baruch fared even better than as outlined above.