"That's just the trouble with your farming," he repeated. "You slave and break your back and crops are fine and you hope to have a good return for your labor, when along comes a hail storm and ruins your fruit or tobacco or corn, or along comes a dry spell or a wet spell with the same result. It sounds mighty fine to say the farmer is the most independent person on the face of the earth--it's a different proposition when you try it out. Not so?" "I'm about convinced you speak the truth about it," said the farmer. "I know I do. I used to be a farmer, but I have grown wiser. I think there are too many other ways to make money with less risk." "That is why I came----" David hesitated, but the other man waited silently for the explanation. "Have you any more of the gold-mine stock you offered me some time ago?" "That Nevada mine?" "Yes." "Just one thousand dollars' worth; the rest is all cleaned out. I sold a thousand yesterday. Listen, Dave, there's the chance of your life. You know how I worked on that farm of mine, how my wife had to slave, how even Mary had to work hard. Then one day a friend of mine who had gone west came to me and offered me some stock in a western gold mine. My wife was afraid of it, said I'd lose every cent I put in it and we'd have to go to the poorhouse--women don't generally understand about investments. But I went ahead and got the stock, and in a few years I sold out part of it for a neat sum and drew big dividends on what I kept. Then we moved to town; my wife keeps a maid, Mary goes to college, and we're living instead of slaving our lives away on a farm. And it's honestly made money, for the gold was put into the earth for us to use. It is just a case of running a little risk, but no person loses money because of your risk. Of course, there's lots of stock sold that's not worth the paper it's written on, but I don't sell that kind." "People trust you here," said David. If the man winced or had reason to do so, he betrayed no sign of it. "I hope so," he said. "You have known me all my life. If I ever want to work any skin game I'll go out of the place where all my friends are. This mine of which I speak is near the mine at Goldfield and some of the veins struck recently are richer than those of the renowned Goldfield. They are still striking deeper veins. I have sold stock in that mine to fifteen people in this town." He mentioned some of the residents of Greenwald; people who, in David's opinion, were too shrewd to be entangled in any nefarious investment. The names impressed David--if those fifteen put their money into it he might as well be the sixteenth. In a little while David Eby walked home with a paper representing the ownership of a number of shares of a certain gold mine in Nevada, while Caleb Warner patted musingly a check for five hundred dollars.