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 than he spoke.

"It isn't really a company at all," she explained, "only a loose sort of copartnership. Few of the stockholders except you and me have more than five or six thousand dollars invested. The Englishman, the poor boy who was killed up in Eagle Rock Canyon, you remember—had twenty thousand dollars in it. It must have been a whole lot of money to him; I hope we can make it good to his family, Ed."

"We're going to make a good, strong try, palomita mia."

She smiled in his eyes at the sound of this endearing term, which had quite a different meaning on his lips than simple Teresa's.

"We held a sort of stockholders' meeting there at Uncle Hal's bedside," she said. "He resigned the presidency, formally, and Aunt Hope put it in the records. We voted together on a new president, three hundred shares of the outstanding five hundred being represented. You are the president, Ed."

"No!" said he, genuinely amazed by the swift revelation of his new consequence.

"It was all regular and legal, nobody can question it. For the good of the company Aunt Hope and I have agreed to stand together and keep you in office. It never would do to have a stranger in here mussing things up."

"Mussing things up!" said he, hearing her words like an echo of his own in the frequent charges he had lodged in bitterness and contempt against himself. "That's all I've done since I came here."