A new determination to complete and perfect his plant-setting machine had taken possession of him.
••••••••
The meeting to organize a promotion company that would in turn launch the first industrial enterprise in the town of Bidwell was held in the back room of the Bidwell bank one afternoon in June. The berry season had just come to an end and the streets were full of people. A circus had come to town and at one o'clock there was a parade. Before the stores horses belonging to visiting country people stood hitched in two long rows. The meeting in the bank was not held until four o'clock, when the banking business was at an end for the day. It had been a hot, stuffy afternoon and a storm threatened. For some reason the whole town had an inkling of the fact that a meeting was to be held on that day, and in spite of the excitement caused by the coming of the circus, it was in everybody's mind. From the very beginning of his upward journey in life, Steve Hunter had the faculty of throwing an air of mystery and importance about everything he did. Every one saw the workings of the machinery by which the myth concerning himself was created, but was nevertheless impressed. Even the men of Bidwell who retained the ability to laugh at Steve could not laugh at the things he did.
For two months before the day on which the meeting was held, the town had been on edge. Every one knew that Hugh McVey had suddenly given up his place in the telegraph office and that he was engaged in some enterprise with Steve Hunter. "Well, I see he has thrown off the mask, that fellow," said Alban Foster, superintendent of the Bidwell schools, in speak-
