From that time on the Alaskan Mining Company underwent mysterious changes.  New capitalists gained control and the name was altered to the Great Northwestern Mining Company.  Then it became involved in litigation, and one suit, the outcome of which meant millions to the company, was carried to the Supreme Court, where Judge Rossmore was sitting.  The judge had by this time forgotten all about the company in which he owned stock.  He did not even recall its name.  He only knew vaguely that it was a mine and that it was situated in Alaska.  Could he dream that the Great Northwestern Mining Company and the company to which he had entrusted his few thousands were one and the same?  In deciding on the merits of the case presented to him right seemed to him to be plainly with the Northwestern, and he rendered a decision to that effect.  It was an important decision, involving a large sum, and for a day or two it was talked about.  But as it was the opinion of the most learned and honest judge on the bench no one dreamed of questioning it.

But very soon ugly paragraphs began to appear in the newspapers.  One paper asked if it were true that Judge Rossmore owned stock in the Great Northwestern Mining Company which had recently benefited so signally by his decision.  Interviewed by a reporter, Judge Rossmore indignantly denied being interested in any way in the company.  Thereupon the same paper returned to the attack, stating that the judge must surely be mistaken as the records showed a sale of stock to him at the time the company was known as the Alaskan Mining Company.  When he read this the judge was overwhelmed.  It was true then!  They had not slandered him.  It was he who had lied, but how innocently—­how innocently!

His daughter Shirley, who was his greatest friend and comfort, was then in Europe.  She had gone to the Continent to rest, after working for months on a novel which she had just published.  His wife, entirely without experience in business matters and somewhat of an invalid, was helpless to advise him.  But to his old and tried friend, ex-Judge Stott, Judge Rossmore explained the facts as they were.  Stott shook his head.  “It’s a conspiracy!” he cried.  “And John B. Ryder is behind it.”  Rossmore refused to believe that any man could so deliberately try to encompass another’s destruction, but when more newspaper stories came out he began to realize that Stott was right and that his enemies had indeed dealt him a deadly blow.  One newspaper boldly stated that Judge Rossmore was down on the mining company’s books for $50,000 more stock than he had paid for, and it went on to ask if this were payment for the favourable decision just rendered.  Rossmore, helpless, child-like as he was in business matters, now fully realized the seriousness of his position.  “My God!  My God!” he cried, as he bowed his head down on his desk.  And for a whole day he remained closeted in his library, no one venturing near him.