Mr. Wingfield was said to be behind the market. He was looked upon as boss of the mining partnership, and Mr. Nixon as a circumstance. Mr. Wingfield was a conspicuous figure at nearly all the sessions of the Goldfield Stock Exchange, of which he was a member. In the early evenings, when informal sessions were held on the curb, he could also be seen in the thick of the tumult. He was on the job at all hours. At that time Mr. Wingfield was about thirty years old. Of stinted, meager frame, his was the extreme pallor that denoted ill health, years of hardship, or vicious habits. His eyes were watery, his look vacillating. Uncouth, cold of manner, and taciturn of disposition, he was the last man whom an observer would readily imagine to be the possessor of abilities of a superior order. In and around the camp he was noted for secretiveness. He was rated a cool, calculating, selfish, surething gambler-man-of-affairs--the kind who uses the backstairs, never trusts anybody, is willing to wait a long time to accomplish a set purpose, keeps his mouth closed, and does not allow trifling scruples to stand in the way of final encompassment. Among stud-poker players who patronized gaming tables in Tonopah, Goldfield and Bullfrog, he was famed for a half-cunning expression of countenance which deceived his opponents into believing he was bluffing when he wasn't. In card games he was usually a consistent winner. His partner, George S. Nixon, looked the part of the dapper little Winnemucca bank manager and confidential State Agent of the Southern Pacific that he was before becoming Senator. He was considerably below middle weight, and above middle girth at that part of his anatomy which a political enemy once described as seat of his thoughts and the tabernacle of his aspirations. His steel-gray eyes were absolutely without expression. Newly-rich, his money and his Southern Pacific connections had gained him a toga, but he did not carry himself like a man upon whom the honors had been thrust. Around Goldfield he strutted with the pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee. The pair were in control of the mine, bank and market situation. Brokers, bank men and officers of mining companies waited upon them and did their bidding. At night, in the Montezuma Club, where leading citizens were wont to congregate, Mr. Wingfield would on occasion ostentatiously offer to wager that Goldfield Consolidated "would sell at $15 before $9," etc. Men with money who had flocked to the camp from every direction listened in rapt attention. At a later hour they secretly wired the news to their friends in the East. Next morning the market would reflect more public buying and still higher prices. Goldfield itself was blindly following the lead of the twain. It was indeed easier for these men to mark prices up than to put them down. THE WINNINGS OF A TENDERFOOT