“I tell you, Sam,” retorted Jadwin, “the surplus of wheat is going out of the country—and it’s going fast. And some of these shorts will have to hustle lively for it pretty soon.”
“The Crookes gang, though,” observed Landry, “seem pretty confident the market will break. I’m sure they were selling short this morning.”
“The idea,” exclaimed Jadwin, incredulously, “the idea of selling short in face of this Argentine collapse, and all this Bull news from Europe!”
“Oh, there are plenty of shorts,” urged Gretry. “Plenty of them.”
Try as he would, the echoes of the rumbling of the Pit reached Jadwin at every hour of the day and night. The maelstrom there at the foot of La Salle Street was swirling now with a mightier rush than for years past. Thundering, its vortex smoking, it sent its whirling far out over the country, from ocean to ocean, sweeping the wheat into its currents, sucking it in, and spewing it out again in the gigantic pulses of its ebb and flow.
And he, Jadwin, who knew its every eddy, who could foretell its every ripple, was out of it, out of it. Inactive, he sat there idle while the clamour of the Pit swelled daily louder, and while other men, men of little minds, of narrow imaginations, perversely, blindly shut their eyes to the swelling of its waters, neglecting the chances which he would have known how to use with such large, such vast results. That mysterious event which long ago he felt was preparing, was not yet consummated. The great Fact, the great Result which was at last to issue forth from all this turmoil was not yet achieved. Would it refuse to come until a master hand, all powerful, all daring, gripped the levers of the sluice gates that controlled the crashing waters of the Pit? He did not know. Was it the moment for a chief?
Was this upheaval a revolution that called aloud for its Napoleon? Would another, not himself, at last, seeing where so many shut their eyes, step into the place of high command?
Jadwin chafed and fretted in his inaction. As the time when the house party should break up drew to its close, his impatience harried him like a gadfly. He took long drives over the lonely country roads, or tramped the hills or the frozen lake, thoughtful, preoccupied. He still held his seat upon the Board of Trade. He still retained his agents in Europe. Each morning brought him fresh despatches, each evening’s paper confirmed his forecasts.
“Oh, I’m out of it for good and all,” he assured his wife. “But I know the man who could take up the whole jing-bang of that Crookes crowd in one hand and”—his large fist swiftly knotted as he spoke the words—“scrunch it up like an eggshell, by George.”
Landry Court often entertained Page with accounts of the doings on the Board of Trade, and about a fortnight after the Jadwins had returned to their city home he called on her one evening and brought two or three of the morning’s papers.
“Have you seen this?” he asked. She shook her head.
“Well,” he said, compressing his lips, and narrowing his eyes, “let me tell you, we are having pretty—lively—times—down there on the Board these days. The whole country is talking about it.”
He read her certain extracts from the newspapers he had brought. The first article stated that recently a new factor had appeared in the Chicago wheat market. A Bull clique had evidently been formed, presumably of New York capitalists, who were ousting the Crookes crowd and were rapidly coming into control of the market. In consequence of this the price of wheat was again mounting.
Another paper spoke of a combine of St. Louis firms who were advancing prices, bulling the market. Still a third said, at the beginning of a half-column article:
“It is now universally conceded that an Unknown Bull has invaded the Chicago wheat market since the beginning of the month, and is now dominating the entire situation. The Bears profess to have no fear of this mysterious enemy, but it is a matter of fact that a multitude of shorts were driven ignominiously to cover on Tuesday last, when the Great Bull gathered in a long line of two million bushels in a single half hour. Scalping and eighth-chasing are almost entirely at an end, the smaller traders dreading to be caught on the horns of the Unknown. The new operator’s identity has been carefully concealed, but whoever he is, he is a wonderful trader and is possessed of consummate nerve. It has been rumoured that he hails from New York, and is but one of a large clique who are inaugurating a Bull campaign. But our New York advices are emphatic in denying this report, and we can safely state that the Unknown Bull is a native, and a present inhabitant of the Windy City.”
Page looked up at Landry quickly, and he returned her glance without speaking. There was a moment’s silence.
“I guess,” Landry hazarded, lowering his voice, “I guess we’re both thinking of the same thing.”
“But I know he told my sister that he was going to stop all that kind of thing. What do you think?”
“I hadn’t ought to think anything.”
“Say ‘shouldn’t think,’ Landry.”
“Shouldn’t think, then, anything about it. My business is to execute Mr. Gretry’s orders.”
“Well, I know this,” said Page, “that Mr. Jadwin is down town all day again. You know he stayed away for a while.”
“Oh, that
