Excitement ran high and the offices of Chase and Company were besieged by the curious and speculative among the smaller fry, but the moneyed interests still held aloof in spite of the artfully conservative bait dangled before them, and for a time developments were at a standstill.

It was during this period that one day Winnie North and Vernon Halstead found themselves compulsory room-mates at an overcrowded stag house-party in Westchester. The events of the preceding autumn had chastened and matured both of the genially irresponsible young men and the resultant change edified their immediate relatives even while it caused them to exhibit unflattering astonishment.

Winnie was making a determined effort to learn the intricacies of the brokerage game and Vernon had enrolled himself at the university on the Heights for a post-graduate course in mining and petroleum engineering.

It was natural, therefore, that the subject which arose for discussion between them over a night-cap and cigarette was that of the Almas Perderse well.

"It sounds mighty good, I admit," Vernon remarked. "If anybody but Starr Wiley stood sponsor for it I should have more faith in its possibilities, I suppose, but somehow I can't figure him in a bona-fide deal."

"The governor doesn't share your prejudice, nor does your own father,"

Winnie remarked. "I've heard them talking and I've a hunch that they're both going to invest pretty heavily in the Almas Perderse stock when it is issued. They have faith in Wiley's knowledge of a good thing when he sees it, and I fancy it's sound, at that. He's been more than ordinarily successful in the past with other propositions, you know, and whatever your opinions of him personally, you'll have to admit that Wiley's reputation on the Exchange is second to none as far as judgment and efficiency and a thorough comprehension of the oil game are concerned."

"Yet the big investors are holding off, I understand," Vernon observed thoughtfully. "I wish my father wouldn't monkey with it. What's the game, Winnie? What are Chase and Wiley doing to launch the Almas Perderse?"

"Well, they've recently increased their capitalization to twenty-five million and they told the governor they want to raise ten million more at once. They're offering a million shares at ten dollars, par value, and they claim a jump to one hundred or better is inevitable within a few months, as soon as the development starts. The governor thinks he's being let in on the ground floor."

"It would look like it, if the thing is on the level." Vernon shook his head. "They're liable to bring in a gusher that'll send the price soaring."

"Whatever that means!" Winnie laughed. "You'll be some little petroleum engineer yourself one of these days! I don't know anything about it myself, but it seems to me the figures that Wiley stated to the governor as the initial cost of development were pretty steep; twenty-five million, including an eight-inch pipe line to Limasito and tankage equipment there."

"No, that's not excessive," demurred Vernon. "The pumping stations every ten miles will average fifty thousand alone, and every foot of the pipe must be transported by peons--laborers, you know--on their shoulders through the swamps. Moreover, now that it seems inevitable that we shall get in the war ourselves, it's going to be next to impossible to get tankers at any price to bring the oil up from Mexico.--But I'm only a tyro yet; Kearn Thode can give you the details far better than I can. What's become of him, by the way?"

"He's out West, somewhere." Winnie ground out the stub of his cigarette. "He went soon after your cousin----er----"

"By Jove!" Vernon rose. "I'd give anything to see Willa again!

Wasn't she the most wonderful little thoroughbred that ever lived!"

"She was," Winnie responded, his voice very low. "We'll never know a girl just like her, Verne. There's not another in the world."

Vernon glanced with unusual keenness at his friend and when he spoke his tone was roughly sympathetic.

"Hard hit, Winnie? Well, so was I, for that matter. Not that she would ever have looked at me, of course, but if she'd stayed another day I meant to ask her to stay always. She put me on the road to making a man of myself; some day I'll tell you how, maybe. It has a good deal to do with my distrust of Starr and his 'Almas Perderse'."

At an unG.o.dly hour the next morning Winnie North was summoned to the telephone.

"h.e.l.lo! What the deuce is it?" he demanded sleepily, but the voice which came to him over the wire speedily dispelled his somnolence.

"That you, Win? This is Kearn Thode."

"What! Gad, old man, it's good to hear your voice!" Winnie exclaimed.

"When did you get in?"

"Just last night. I tried to get hold of you, but your father told me you were up there at Stoney Crest----"

"Come on out! Jim would have asked you if he'd known where you were.

I'll tell him----"

"No," Thode interrupted tersely. "Sorry, but I can't waste a day!

I've got to see you at once, this morning if possible."

"All right," Winnie responded. "Tell you what I'll do; I'll grab Jim's speedster and meet you at the b.u.mble Bee Inn. I can make it in an hour and so can you, as it's about half way out. n.o.body'll be around in the morning and it's deserted anyway this time of the year, so we can have it to ourselves. I say, what's the racket, Kearn?"

"Tell you when I see you. Don't fail me, Win. Good-bye."

When Winnie drove up to the road-house an hour later, a lone taxi'

stood outside and a familiar figure was seated at one of the tables in the otherwise empty restaurant. As it rose he saw that the two months had brought Kearn Thode back to what he had been before the fever laid him low in Mexico. He glowed with the old health and strength, and in his eyes was the triumphant fire of achievement.

"h.e.l.lo, old man! You're looking wonderfully fit again, thank the Lord!

Did you find that important something or other that was worth more than the pot of gold?"

Thode smiled as they shook hands.

"I found what I went after," he replied quietly. "And you? I hear you're settling into the harness in great shape."

Winnie flushed.

"The governor would boast, I suppose, as long as I succeeded in keeping out of jail," he observed. "It's a horrible responsibility to be an only son! But what's the big idea? You didn't chivvie me out of bed in the cold gray dawn for nothing!"

Thode beckoned to the solitary waiter, hovering in the pantry doorway, before responding.

"We'd better have some coffee and a bite first. Then I want the news; remember I've been out in the wild and woolly since before the holidays."

When their order had been given, Winnie observed:

"I suppose you've heard about Wiley. He's been down in Mexico and grabbed off a new oil well, the Almas Perderse----"

"The Lost Souls!" Thode's hands clenched, and he drew a deep breath between set teeth. "So he pulled it off, did he? By Jove, I wonder----"

"What?" asked the other after a pause. "Did you know about the well, too?"

Kearn Thode laughed.

"I'd heard of it," he acknowledged. "I wish him joy of his discovery!

Is he making headway while the going is good?"

"Rather! I say, it isn't bunk, is it? I mean, this Almas Perderse is the real thing, a good financial proposition?"

"If it is really the Almas Perderse and he holds a clear t.i.tle, it's the greatest prize in the oil fields to-day." Thode's face sobered.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because the governor and Ripley Halstead are going into it heavily,"

explained Winnie. "I don't know how much stock Halstead's subscribed for, but the governor is going to take about fifty thousand shares at par, ten dollars. He's bugs about it; thinks he's going to make his everlasting fortune."

"Win, tell him to drop it!" Thode said earnestly. "I can't explain now for there's more at stake than the Lost Souls, but I know what I'm talking about. He might as profitably sink his money in a bottomless pit as in that oil well!"

"Look here, I don't understand!" Winnie's voice shook. "You said just now it was the greatest prize in the oil fields to-day. What's wrong with it?"

"I told you I couldn't explain," Thode responded doggedly. "You've simply got to take my word for it, that's all. I'm not sure enough of my ground to make a definite statement yet or I would warn your father myself, but I'm so far convinced of coming trouble that I wouldn't see a friend of mine put a dollar in it if I could persuade him not to. I don't mind admitting that my own trip to Mexico last fall was made in the hope of locating that well myself, but it isn't sour grapes now with me. I give you my word of honor, Win, that whatever your father invests in the Almas Perderse well under the present conditions will be irretrievably lost."