In an old, rackety, single-horse buggy, a vehicle which, to judge by the antiquity of its build and appearance and the rattle of its loose worn bolts, might have done duty since the days of the first pioneers, Dudgeon drove from his homestead to the bank. He was a man who never discarded any article of use or clothing until it was hopelessly beyond repair. With a huge fortune stowed away in gilt-edged securities and metropolitan house property, he grudged even a coat of paint for the vehicle he had driven for nearly forty years. The local wheelwright had long since declined to attempt to repair it, so the old man fell back on fencing-wire and his own skill whenever the final collapse seemed imminent.