It was while the pendulum of prosperity was in full swing that David Kent took a day off from sweating over his problem of ousting the receiver and ran down to Gaston. Single-eyed as he was in the pursuit of justice, he was not unmindful of the six lots standing in his name in the Gaston suburb, and from all accounts the time was come to dispose of them. He made the journey in daylight, with his eyes wide open and the mental pencil busy at work noting the changes upon which the State press had been dilating daily, but which he was now seeing for the first time. They were incontestable--and wonderful. He admitted the fact without prejudice to a settled conviction that the sun-burst of prosperity was merely another brief period of bubble-blowing. Towns whose streets had been grass-grown since the day when each in turn had surrendered its right to be called the terminus of the westward-building railroad, were springing into new life. The song of the circular saw, the bee-boom of the planing-mill and the tapping of hammers were heard in the land, and the wayside hamlets were dotted with new roofs. And Gaston---- But Gaston deserved a separate paragraph in the mental note-book, and Kent accorded it, marveling still more. It was as if the strenuous onrush of the climaxing Year Three had never been interrupted. The material for the new company shops was arriving by trainloads, and an army of men was at work clearing the grounds. On a siding near the station a huge grain elevator was rising. In the streets the hustling activity of the "terminus" period was once more in full swing; and at the Mid-Continent Kent had some little difficulty in securing a room. He was smoking his after-dinner cigar in the lobby of the hotel and trying as he might to orient himself when Blashfield Hunnicott drifted in. Kent gave the sometime local attorney a cigar, made room for him on the plush-covered settee, and proceeded to pump him dry of Gaston news. Summed up, the inquiries pointed themselves thus: was there any basis for the Gaston revival other than the lately changed attitude of the railroad? In other words, if the cut rates should be withdrawn and the railroad activities cease, would there not be a second and still more disastrous collapse of the Gaston bubble? Pressed hardly, Hunnicott admitted the probability; given another turn, the screw of inquiry squeezed out an admission of the fact, slurred over by the revivalist, that the railway company's treasury was really the alms-box into which all hands were dipping. "One more question and I'll let up on you," said Kent. "It used to be said of you in the flush times that you kept tab on the real estate transfers when everybody else was too busy to read the record. Do you still do it?" Hunnicott laughed uneasily. "Rather more than ever just now, as you'd imagine." "It is well. Now you know the members of the old gang, from his Excellency down. Tell me one thing: are they buying or selling?"