"Give me your last five annual statements, Mr.
Sinclair, please."
The old servitor brought forth the documents in question. Bryce
stuffed them into his pocket and left the office. Three quarters of
an hour later he entered the little amphitheatre in the Valley of the
Giants and paused with an expression of dismay. One of the giants had
fallen and lay stretched across the little clearing. In its descent
it had demolished the little white stone over his mother's grave and
had driven the fragments of the stone deep into the earth.
The tremendous brown butt quite ruined the appearance of the
amphitheatre by reason of the fact that it constituted a barrier some
fifteen feet high and of equal thickness athwart the centre of the
clearing, with fully three quarters of the length of the tree lost to
sight where the fallen monarch had wedged between its more fortunate
fellows. The fact that the tree was down, however, was secondary to
the fact that neither wind nor lightning had brought it low, but
rather the impious hand of man; for the great jagged stump showed all
too plainly the marks of cross-cut saw and axe; a pile of chips four
feet deep littered the ground.
For fully a minute Bryce stood dumbly gazing upon the sacrilege
before his rage and horror found vent in words.
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