His father's letters showed a physical breakdown.
His handwriting was unsteady, and often he repeated himself in successive letters.

The sister wrote about her father's weakness, and seemed to think he was working too hard.

But the son suspected that it was worry rather than work, and that things were not going right in the bank.

He did not know that the Golden Belt Wheat Company had sapped the money of the bank and had left it a husk, which at any time might crumble.

The father knew this, and after the first of the year every morning when he opened the bank he feared that day would be the last day of its career.
And so it fell out that "those that look out of the windows" were darkened, and General Hendricks rose up with the voice of the bird and was "afraid of that which was high" and terrors were in the way.