When there seemed no possibility of this repetition of Hawkins's folly, the anxiety to know what he had really done with his money became intense. At last a self-appointed committee of four citizens dropped artfully, but to outward appearances carelessly, upon him in his seclusion. When some polite formalities had been exchanged, and some easy vituperation of a backward season offered by each of the parties, Tom Wingate approached the subject. “Sorter dropped heavy on Jack Hamlin the other night, didn't ye? He allows you didn't give him no show for revenge. I said you wasn't no such d----d fool; didn't I, Dick?” continued the artful Wingate, appealing to a confederate. “Yes,” said Dick promptly. “You said twenty thousand dollars wasn't goin' to be thrown around recklessly. You said Cyrus had suthin' better to do with his capital,” super-added Dick with gratuitous mendacity. “I disremember now what partickler investment you said he was goin' to make with it,” he continued, appealing with easy indifference to his friend. Of course Wingate did not reply, but looked at the “Fool,” who, with a troubled face, was rubbing his legs softly. After a pause, he turned deprecatingly toward his visitors. “Ye didn't enny of ye ever hev a sort of tremblin' in your legs, a kind o' shakiness from the knee down? Suthin',” he continued, slightly brightening with his topic,--“suthin' that begins like chills, and yet ain't chills? A kind o' sensation of goneness here, and a kind o' feelin' as it you might die suddint?--when Wright's Pills don't somehow reach the spot, and quinine don't fetch you?” “No!” said Wingate with a curt directness, and the air of authoritatively responding for his friends,--“no, never had. You was speakin' of this yer investment.” “And your bowels all the time irregular?” continued Hawkins, blushing under Wingate's eye, and yet clinging despairingly to his theme, like a shipwrecked mariner to his plank. Wingate did not reply, but glanced significantly at the rest. Hawkins evidently saw this recognition of his mental deficiency, and said apologetically, “You was saying suthin' about my investment?” “Yes,” said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost take Hawkins's breath away,--“the investment you made in”-- “Rafferty's Ditch,” said the “Fool” timidly. For a moment, the visitors could only stare blankly at each other. “Rafferty's Ditch,” the one notorious failure of Five Forks!--Rafferty's Ditch, the impracticable scheme of an utterly unpractical man!--Rafferty's Ditch, a ridiculous plan for taking water that could not be got to a place where it wasn't wanted!--Rafferty's Ditch, that had buried the fortunes of Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in its muddy depths!