He wanted to see a Man, but feared the strange creature might be dangerous.

“Richard Wade,” says Churm.  They did not know him.  The name sounded forcible.

“He has been in California,” the nominator said.

A shudder ran around the green table.  They seemed to see a frowzy desperado, shaggy as a bison, in a red shirt and jackboots, hung about the waist with an assortment of six-shooters and bowie-knives, and standing against a background of mustangs, monte-banks, and lynch-law.

“We must get Wade,” Churm says, with authority.  “He knows Iron by heart.  He can handle Men.  I will back him with my blank check, to any amount, to his order.”

Here a murmur of applause, swelling to a cheer, burst from the Directors.

Everybody knew that the Geological Bank deemed Churm’s deposits the fundamental stratum of its wealth.  They lay there in the vaults, like underlying granite.  When hot times came, they boiled up in a mountain to buttress the world.

Churm’s blank check seemed to wave in the air like an oriflamme of victory.  Its payee might come from Botany Bay; he might wear his beard to his knees, and his belt stuck full of howitzers and boomerangs; he might have been repeatedly hung by Vigilance Committees, and as often cut down and revived by galvanism; but brandishing that check, good for anything less than a million, every Director in Wall Street was his slave, his friend, and his brother.

“Let us vote Mr. Wade in by acclamation,” cried the Directors.

“But, gentlemen,” Churm interposed, “if I give him my blank check, he must have carte blanche, and no one to interfere in his management.”

Every Director, from President Brummage down, drew a long face at this condition.

It was one of their great privileges to potter in the Dunderbunk affairs and propose ludicrous impossibilities.

“Just as you please,” Churm continued.  “I name a competent man, a gentleman and fine fellow.  I back him with all the cash he wants.  But he must have his own way.  Now take him, or leave him!”

Such despotic talk had never been heard before in that Directors’ Room.  They relucted a moment.  But they thought of their togas of advertisements in danger.  The blank check shook its blandishments before their eyes.

“We take him,” they said, and Richard Wade was the new Superintendent unanimously.

“He shall be at Dunderbunk to take hold to-morrow morning,” said Churm, and went off to notify him.

Upon this, Consternation sailed out of the hearts of Brummage and associates.

They lunched with good appetites over the green table, and the President confidently remarked,—­

“I don’t believe there is going much of a crisis, after all.”

CHAPTER II.

BARRACKS FOR THE HERO.

Wade packed his kit, and took the Hudson-River train for Dunderbunk the same afternoon.