"You see the game! He wanted to get me in deep enough so that I couldn't wriggle out, deeper than ten thousand that I could get at any time on my insurance, he wanted me where I couldn't get away--and he got me.

The first ten thousand wasn't enough.

I went to him for a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth--hoping always that each would be the last.

Each time a new note, a demand note for the total amount, was made, cancelling the former one.

I didn't know his game, didn't suspect it--I blessed God for giving me such a friend--until this, or, rather, yesterday afternoon, when I received a telegram from my manager at the mine saying that he had struck what looked like a very rich vein--the mother lode.
And"-- Wilbur's fist curled until the knuckles were like ivory in their whiteness--"he added in the telegram that Thurl had wired the news of the strike to a man in New York by the name of Markel.