"I congratulate you, Jim. You are going to do a big thing, one of the biggest things in our history. You are going to teach the mighty that the law is mightier. It ought to land you at the very top in politics or any other old place you'd like to climb."

"That's something which doesn't interest me yet, Cal. The thing that stuns me is that I've got to do so painful a thing. But my business is the enforcement of justice. There's one thing I still can't understand."

He paused and looked at Bivens curiously.

"What's that?" the financier softly asked.

"Why you of all men on earth should have put this information in my hands. The honour of the achievement, if good shall come to the country, is really yours, not mine."

"And you can't conceive of my acting for the country's good?"

Bivens's black eyes twinkled.

"Not by the wildest leap of my imagination."

The twinkle broadened into a smile as the lawyer continued:

"Your code is simple, Cal. There's no provision in it for disinterested effort for others. Few financiers of modern times can conceive of a sane man deliberately working for the good of the people as against his own. In your face, there has never been any doubting, any perplexity, since you made your first strike in New York. Behind your black eyes there has always glowed the steady, deadly purpose of the man who knows exactly what he wants and how he is going to get it. This time you've got me up a tree. You have rendered the people a great service. You have placed me under personal obligations. But how you are going to get anything out of it is beyond me."

"Oh, I'll have my reward, my boy," Bivens answered jovially, as his dainty fingers again stroked his beard, pressing his mustache back from the thin lips, "and I assure you it will not be purely spiritual."

The door had scarcely closed on Stuart when Bivens pressed the button which called his confidential secretary.

In a moment the man stood at his elbow with the tense erect bearing of an orderly on the field of battle. The quick nervous touch of the master's hand on that button had told to his sensitive ears the story of a coming life-and-death struggle. His words came with sharp nervous energy:

"Yes sir?"

The financier slowly drew the big cigar from his mouth and spoke in low tones:

"A meeting of the Allied Bankers here in 30 minutes. No telephone messages. A personal summons to each. They enter one at a time that no one on the outside sees them come. You understand?"

"I understand."

Bivens raised his finger in warning. "Your life on the issue."

Trembling with excitement the secretary turned and quickly left the room.

CHAPTER V

GATHERING CLOUDS

The sensation which the District Attorney sprang in the sudden indictment of the president of the Iroquois Company was profound and far-reaching. The day before the indictment was presented to the Grand Jury stocks began to tumble without any apparent cause. The "big interests" who had hitherto counted on exhaustless funds to sustain them in any market they might choose to make were paralyzed by the suddenness of the attack on stocks and the daring of its hidden leader.

When the warrant for the arrest of the great man had been served and he was admitted to bail to await his coming trial, there was a feeble rally in the market, but the rats quickly began to desert a sinking ship. The president under indictment had ceased to be a power. There was a wild scramble of his associates who were equally guilty to save their own skins. The press, which at first denounced Stuart, now boldly demanded the merciless prosecution of all the guilty. And they hailed the brilliant young District Attorney as the coming man.

In the meantime all kinds of securities continued to tumble. For six consecutive days stocks had fallen with scarcely an hour's temporary rally. Every effort of the bull operators, who had ruled the market for the two years past, to stem the tide was futile. Below the surface, in the silent depths of growing suspicion and fear, an army of sappers and miners under the eye of one man were digging at the foundations of the business world--the faith of man in his fellow-man.

Each day there was a crash and each day the little financier and his unscrupulous allies marked a new victim. The next day the death notice was posted on a new door, and when the bomb had exploded they picked up the pieces and moved to a new attack.

In the midst of the campaign for the destruction of public credit which Bivens and his associates, the Allied Bankers, were conducting with such profound secrecy and such remarkable results, when their profits had piled up into millions, a bomb was suddenly exploded under their own headquarters.

The Van Dam Trust Company was put under the ban of the New York Clearing House. The act was a breach of faith, utterly unwarranted by any known law of the game. But it was done.

When the president of the company walked quietly into Bivens's office and made the announcement, for a moment the little dark man completely lost his nerve--cold beads of sweat started from his swarthy forehead.

"Are you joking?" he gasped.

"Do you think I'd joke about my own funeral?"

"No, of course not, but there must be some mistake."

"There's no mistake. It's a blow below the belt, but it's a knockout for the moment. They know we are solvent, two dollars for one. But they know we have $90,000,000 on deposit and we have some big enemies. They know that the group we have supported have smashed this market, and they've set out to fight the devil with fire. They're determined to force a show-down and see how much real money is behind us. We can pull through if we stand together."

The stolid face of the banker became a motionless mask as he asked:

"Are we going to stand together?"

Bivens sprang to his feet, exclaiming fiercely:

"Until hell freezes over!"

The banker smiled feebly for the first time in a week.

"Then it's all right, Mr. Bivens. We'll pull through. They'll start a run on us to-morrow. Five millions in cash will meet it and we'll win, hands down. We have powerful friends. Our only sin is our association with your group. We must have that five millions in the safe before the doors are opened to-morrow."

"You shall have it," was the firm answer.

With a cheerful pressure of the hand the president of the Van Dam Trust Company left and Bivens called his secretary.

"We turn the market to-morrow--orders to all our men. Knock the bottom out of it until the noon hour, then turn and send it skyward with a bound. You understand?"

"Yes sir."

With an instinctive military salute the secretary hurried to execute the order.

When Dr. Woodman returned home that night from one of his endless tramps among the poor, Harriet opened the door.

Something about the expression of his face startled her. For the first time in her life she saw in its gaunt lines the shadow of despair. He had aged rapidly of late, but the sunlight had never before quite faded from his eyes.

"What is it, Papa dear?" she asked tenderly, slipping an arm about his neck as she drew him down into his favourite chair.

"What, child?" he responded vaguely.