She sighed as she watched the town fade and then a snowflake, featherlike and moist, swirled under the projecting roof and melted on her cheek, to recall her to herself. She swung out over the step and looked to the east where the clouds hung sagging with their weight. Yes, it was well that she had come.
Behind the plate-glass window of the Security State Bank its president stood with his hands thrust deep in his trousers' pockets watching the long train as, with much belching of smoke, it climbed the slight grade. There were moments when Mr. Wentz cursed the Fate that had promoted him from his washing machine, and this was one of them.
Neifkins, hunched in a leather chair in the banker's office, had an obstinate look on his sunburned face.
"I'd give about half I'm worth if that was your stock goin' out," said Wentz, as he reseated himself at his desk.
Neifkins grunted.
"I heard you the first time you said that." The stubborn look on his face increased. "When I'm ready to ship, I'll ship. I know what I'm about--ME."
Wentz did not look impressed by the boast.
Neifkins added in a surly tone: "I don't need no petticoat to show me how to handle sheep."
Wentz answered with a shrug: "Looks to me like you might follow a worse lead. She's contracted for all the hay in sight and shoved the price on what's left up to sixteen dollars in the stack. What you goin' to do if you have to feed?"
"I won't have to feed; I'll take my chance on that. It's goin' to be an open winter," confidently.
"It's startin' in like it," Wentz replied dryly, as he glanced through the window where the falling snowflakes all but obscured the opposite side of the street. Then, emphatically: "I tell you, Neifkins, you Old Timers take too big risks."
"I suppose," the sheepman sneered, "you'd recommend my gettin' loaded up with a few hundred tons of hay I won't need."
"I'd recommend anything that would make you safe." Wentz lowered his voice, which vibrated with earnestness as he leaned forward in his chair: "Do you know what it means if a storm catches you and you have a big loss? It means that only a miracle will keep this bank from goin' on the rocks. We're hangin' on by our eyelashes now, waiting for the payment of your first big note to give us a chance to get our breath. I have the ague every time I see a hard-boiled hat comin' down the street, thinkin' it's a bank examiner. You know as well as I do that you've borrowed to the amount of your stock, and way beyond the ten per cent limit of the capital stock which we as a national bank are allowed to loan an individual--that it's a serious offense if we're found out."