Dr. Lyman was tall as a poplar and muscled like a Samson. He was fresh from the East, red-cheeked and groomed like a Chesterfield. I was cadaverous, desert-worn, office-fagged, and undersized by comparison. In a glove fight, Dr. Lyman could probably have finished me in half a round. But the disparity did not occur to me. The sense of injustice made me forget everything except Dr. Lyman's blackmailing threat. I jumped to my feet. Dr. Lyman backed up to the glass door. I aimed a blow at him. He backed away to dodge it. In a second he had collided with the big plate-glass pane, which fell with a crash. In another instant he recovered his feet, turned on his heel and ran. His face was covered with scratches, the result of his encounter with the broken plate glass. Several clerks who followed him, thinking he had committed some violent act, reported that he didn't stop running until he reached the end of a street 600 feet away. "Oh," he gasped, "I never want to see such a look in a man's eyes again. I thought I saw him reach for a gun." Such an idea was farthest from my mind, although I was very angry. Conscience had made a coward of the doctor. I was quick to decide upon a course of action. The position of the trust company was this: With the exception of Bullfrog Rush, we had a string of stock-market winners to our credit with the public. If we allowed Dr. Lyman to go ahead with his promotion of Bullfrog Rush, we should, unless we abandoned our rule to protect our stocks in the market, be compelled some day to buy back all of the stock he sold. The truth about the mine was bound to come out, and we stood before the public as its sponsors. I decided that the trust company should refund the money paid in by stockholders of Bullfrog Rush and prevent Dr. Lyman from selling more stock. To the brokers, through whom we had sold much of the stock to the public, we telegraphed that we would refund the exact amount paid us by the brokers on delivery back to us of the certificates. We also wired to Governor Sparks and asked his permission to insert an advertisement in the newspapers over his signature, announcing that the property had proved to be a mining failure and advising the public not to buy any more shares. This pleased the Governor immensely, for he promptly wired back his O.K. with congratulations over the stand we took. That night a broadside warning to the public, bearing the signature of Governor John Sparks, and a separate advertisement of the Sullivan Trust Company, offering to refund the money paid for Bullfrog Rush shares, were telegraphed to all the leading newspapers of the East. Next day both of these announcements appeared side by side with the half-page and full-page advertisements of Dr. Lyman's Union Securities Company of Goldfield offering Bullfrog Rush for public subscription. The newspapers, peculiarly enough, performed this stunt without a quiver. The public didn't buy any more Bullfrog shares.