In vain the retired ranchman had tried to keep himself indifferent to the money market.

Everybody was coining money around him.

In the club, in the theatre, wherever he went, the people were talking about purchases of lands, of sales of stock, of quick negotiations with a triple profit, of portentous balances.

The amount of money that he was keeping idle in the banks was beginning to weigh upon him.

He finally ended by involving himself in some speculation; like a gambler who cannot see the roulette wheel without putting his hand in his pocket.
His family was right.