What about me? Where did I stand and what was my position at this conjuncture? Did I have foresight? Did I realize that stocks were selling at much higher prices than were warranted by intrinsic worth and speculative value? Was not the fact that the mergerers and waterers of Goldfield Consolidated were in command of the mine, market and bank situation sufficient to make me suspect that possibly the cards might be stacked and that maybe cards were being dealt from the bottom of the deck? Was I, in fact, wise to the exact situation and did I realize a smash was bound to ensue? 'Tis a pity hindsight were not foresight, for only in that event could I laurel-wreath myself. I had been on the ground for more than two years. In reality I was still a tenderfoot. My experiences had been unique--all on the constructive side. I had mastered the first rudiments of the game, but only the first. Intrinsic value didn't figure as the only item in my conception of the worth of a Goldfield mining issue. The millionaires of the camp were not miners by profession and their judgment of the value of any mining property would not have influenced a Guggenheim, a Ryan or a Rothschild to extend so much as $4 on the development of any piece of likely mineral ground. Goldfield was a poor man's camp. And it was making good despite the croakings of school-trained engineers who had turned the district down in the early days, as they did Tonopah. At this period I was living frugally. I never touched a card. I worked at my desk on an average of sixteen hours a day, including Sunday, and I never relaxed. Although I had arrived in the camp broke, had I been offered $2,000,000 for my half interest in the L. M. Sullivan Trust Company I think I should have refused it. I liked my job. The leaven of my environment appealed directly to my perceptions. I was saturated with the traditions of Western "mining luck" and also with the optimism of my sturdy neighbors. These men had stood their ground in the early period of the camp's days of "trial and tribulation." They had triumphed like their forebears on the Comstock, just as did the hardy pioneers of Leadville and Cripple Creek and as their brethren of Tonopah did. Their influence over me was unbounded. I relished the work, anyhow. As a matter of fact, I had little use for money except for the purposes of business. _And never a suggestion came to me that it was time for a "clean up."_