Tom broke the eye-hold on the vision and sprang up to pace the narrow limits of the study.

“It’s up to me,” he mused, “and I’d like to know what I’ve been thinking of all this time.  Why, pappy’s old! he was forty before I was born.  And I’ve been up here taking it easy and having all sorts of a good time, while he’s been playing Sindbad to Duxbury Farley’s Old Man of the Sea.  Coming, pappy!” he shouted; and forthwith flung himself down at the table to write a letter that was to put new life into a weary old man who was fighting against odds in the far-away Southland.

The lone soldier was to take heart of grace, remembering that he had a son; remembering also that the son was now a man grown, stout of arm, steady of head, and otherwise fighting-fit.  If the storm should come, the watchword must be to hold on all, keeping steerage-way on the Chiawassee Consolidated craft at all hazards.  The June examinations were not far off, and these disposed of, the man-son would be ready to lay hold.  Meanwhile, let Caleb Gordon, in his capacity of principal minor stock-holder, insist on a full and exact statement of the company’s affairs, and—­here the new manhood asserted itself boldly—­let that statement, or a copy of it, come to Boston by the first mail.

To this letter there was a grateful reply in which Tom read with a smile his father’s half-bewildered attempt to get over to the new point of view.  It began, “Dear Buddy,” and ended, “Your affectionate pappy,” but there was man-to-man matter between the salutation and the signature.  The inquiry into the affairs of Chiawassee Consolidated had revealed little or nothing more than the general manager already knew.  The president had turned the inquiring stock-holder over to Dyckman, the bookkeeper, with instructions to give Mr. Gordon the fullest possible information, and: 

“Dyckman slid out of it, smooth and easy-like,” Caleb’s letter went on.  “He allowed he was mighty busy, right about then.  Wouldn’t I just make myself at home and examine the books for myself?  I reckon that was about what Farley wanted him to do.  I’m no book expert, and I couldn’t make head or tail out of Dyckman’s spider tracks.  Looks to me like all the books are good for is to keep people from finding where the company is at.  What little I found out, young Norman told me.  He says we’re in a hole, and the first wagon-load of dirt that comes along will bury us out of sight.”

Tom, driven now with the closing work of the college year, yet took time to write another heartening letter to the hard-pressed old soldier.  It had been his good fortune to win the Clarkson prize for crucible tests, and to have gained thereby a speaking acquaintance with the multimillionaire iron king who had founded it.  Mr. Clarkson did not believe that the financial storm would grow to panic size.  As for himself, Tom thought the hazard was less in the times than in the Farleys.  Father Caleb was to keep his finger on the pulse of the main office, wiring Boston at the first sign of its weakening.