Robert Barr

“ The newspapers made a great deal of his encounter with old Rockervelt and his victory over that magnate, but Jack was a clear-headed man who had no delusions on the score of that episode. He had spent some very anxious days while negotiations were pending, and no one knew better than he that if Rockervelt had decided to fight, it might have cost the great railway king more than he had paid, but Jack Steele would have been wiped out when the battle was ended. He resolved never again to combat a force so many thousand times stronger than himself. ”

“ The man for whom every reporter in Chicago is searching, and whom I am most desirous to meet, walks right into my office. How many million bushels of wheat did you buy to-day, Mr. Steele?"
Jack Steele was a much more genial person than this man from New York. He threw back his head and laughed.
"Mr. Nicholson, I am delighted to have made your acquaintance. Your wild guess that I am the buyer of wheat is really flattering to me. Yet your own reference to my little contest with Rockervelt should have reminded you that I deal in railways, and not in grain." ”

“ Tom shook hands and sat down without a word; all his old jauntiness had left him.
"Well, my Christian friend," began Steele in his severest manner, "when I was the means of getting you transferred from Slocum Junction to Chicago, and also had something to do towards endowing your wife-that-was-to-be with nearly fifty thousand dollars, hang me if I thought you would act the giddy farmer-come-to-town and blow it all away in the wheat-pit! God bless my soul! haven't you sense enough to know that the biggest men in Chicago have been crumpled up in the grain-market? ”

“ Wheat? Why, I know all about wheat on the field, even if I don't recognise it in the Chicago pit. You see, my business is looking after freight, and the chief freight of our road is wheat. Therefore, wherever wheat grows, I must visit that spot, and I have done so. I give you my oath that wheat is bound to be a dollar a bushel before two months are past. It's under seventy-five cents now, and it doesn't take much figuring to show the possibilities of the situation. Three things are wanted: knowledge, courage, money. ”

“ The Chicago wheat-pit is a pretty big thing, but it isn't the Almighty, neither is it the great and growing west. It can do many things, but it can't buck up against Nature. Wheat now, we'll say, is seventy-five cents a bushel, because of the belief that there's going to be an abundant crop; but if twenty-five per cent. of that crop fails, it means that twenty-five per cent. is going to be added to the present price of wheat. It means dollar wheat, that's what it means, and a man who knows this fact to-day can make unlimited millions of money if he's got the capital behind him. ”

“ Wheat in America this year will be only three-quarters of a crop, if it is that much. You can joggle with the fact for a little time, but you can't conceal it. Even the great firm on Broadway cannot make a blade of wheat grow where one has been killed by the frost—not in the same year, at least. So you may telegraph to your distinguished principals and tell them that Jack Steele and Dame Nature are going to dance a minuet with those two Corsican brothers of New York, and your fraternal friends will find some difficulty in keeping pace with the music. ”

“ The pit went wild, and prices came down with a run. Steele had already stopped his buyers, and he stood from under. Closing prices for wheat were sixty-five three-eighths. Jack Steele did some deep thinking and close figuring that night. In spite of his purchases of the day, he had still a million dollars left to gamble with.
"My friend the bear," he said to himself, "is very likely to keep up his antics to-morrow, so as to frighten the opposition. If he squeezes down prices to sixty, I'll buy five million bushels. Every cent of a drop will mean a loss of fifty thousand dollars. ”

“ No, I'll confine myself to giving Tom a piece of my mind when I see him which will make him angry, so we'll quarrel, and then it'll be easy to refuse him."
At three o'clock the ex-station-master of Slocum Junction was shown into John Steele's private office. His face was so gaunt and haggard that for a moment Steele felt sorry for him; but business is business, and sympathy has no place in the wheat-pit. ”

“ Steele's buying took the market by surprise. No one knew, of course, who the purchaser was, but the price rose rapidly, point by point, until seventy-eight was again reached, and then Steele instantly gave orders for the sale of the million bushels that stood in Tom's name, for the double purpose of getting the man his money, and lowering the price so that his own purchases might be accomplished at a less figure than seventy-eight. ”

“ Tremendous wheat crops!' Of course, it must be remembered that prophesying prosperity is always popular, and newspapers like that sort of news. Now, I shall select twenty-five places named in this paper. The useful Bronson will find out for me a reliable man in each place, and I will telegraph him. By to-morrow we should have replies from some fifteen or twenty of them; and if the majority say that the wheat crop is a failure, then I think we may rely on your forecast. ”

“ My chiefs are the most generous of men."
"Oh, we all know that."
"If you have lost money these last two days, they will refund it. They are even willing to allow you a reasonable profit, and I am empowered to negotiate regarding the figures." ”