A Raw, gray day with a driving drizzle from seaward and a leaden
rack of clouds drifting low matched the sullen, fitful mood of
Glenister.

During the last month he had chafed and fretted like an animal in
leash for word of Wheaton. This uncertainty, this impotent waiting
with folded hands, was maddening to one of his spirit. He could
apply himself to no fixed duty, for the sense of his wrong preyed
on him fiercely, and he found himself haunting the vicinity of the
Midas, gazing at it from afar, grasping hungrily for such scraps
of news as chanced to reach him. McNamara allowed access to none
but his minions, so the partners knew but vaguely of what happened
on their property, even though, under fiction of law, it was being
worked for their protection.

No steps regarding a speedy hearing of the case were allowed, and
the collusion between Judge Stillman and the receiver had become
so generally recognized that there were uneasy mutterings and
threats in many quarters. Yet, although the politician had by now
virtually absorbed all the richest properties in the district and
worked them through his hirelings, the people of Nome as a whole
did not grasp the full turpitude of the scheme nor the system's
perfect working.

Strange to say, Dextry, the fire-eater, had assumed an Oriental
patience quite foreign to his peppery disposition, and spent much
of his time in the hills prospecting.

On this day, as the clouds broke, about noon, close down on the