Everything had promised well when Silver Shield was first exploited. Its promoters and agents showed high-grade ore, and reports of expert mining engineers promised abundance of it. All that was needed was development. "Come in now, on the ground-floor, and you'll be coining money in a year's time," said Mr. Breifogle, and to the number of seven the commissioned force at Fort Reynolds had "come." So long as they remained close to the spot all seemed going well. But Graham had been ordered to the Point, and the regiment over in the Oklahoma country. Then came trouble. It seemed odd that stock held so high should so soon have to be assessed. But "some expensive machinery was necessary." Then came a second and larger demand. Silver Shield was so valuable that envious eyes had been directed to it, and fraudulent claims and claimants were constantly turning up. Threatened litigation would be long and expensive. It would be cheaper far to buy off the litigants. So Graham, with a sigh and sore premonition of trouble, obtained the necessary amount on his personal note. McCrea, with inward misgiving, borrowed and sent it. Officers at Reno sent up what they could, but it wasn't enough, and in May came a third appeal. The secretary wrote that litigation had begun, and there was reason to believe the courts were being "approached" by the enemy. It was absolutely essential that "these parties should be bought off," and quite a sum would be necessary. The First National Bank of Argenta (which had once been robbed of a great sum by road-agents, who were run down and captured by officers and men of the --th, and the money recovered) ought in all conscience to be grateful to its benefactors, yet when Graham, McCrea, and Major Lawrence wrote, begging advice in the premises, the bank was non-committal. Some of its customers were among the litigants, as was later discovered. And so it resulted that not until near the end of June did it dawn upon the officers involved that the whole matter was nothing more nor less than a well-conceived, but rascally, scheme to "milk them dry," as was the expression, secure their shares at a sacrifice, or drive them out entirely. And they, the absentees, were only seven against seventy or more, who were experienced in all the crafts and devices by which mines have been dug at the expense of the many and then made to enrich the few.