ong of many things in order to
protect himself. To-day he had nothing to speak of--perhaps a paltry
seventy-five thousand dollars which he had managed to scrape together.
Thank God! he had only the reputation of Wingate's old house to lose, if
he lost, which was nothing. With it as a trading agency behind him--with
it as an excuse for his presence, his right to buy and sell--he had
everything to gain. Where many men were thinking of ruin, he was
thinking of success. He would have Wingate and his two brothers under
him to execute his orders exactly. He could pick up a fourth and a fifth
man if necessary. He would give them orders to sell--everything--ten,
fifteen, twenty, thirty points off, if necessary, in order to trap the
unwary, depress the market, frighten the fearsome who would think he was
too daring; and then he would buy, buy, buy, below these figures as much
as possible, in order to cover his sales and reap a profit.

His instinct told him how widespread and enduring this panic would be.
The Northern Pacific was a hundred-million-dollar venture. It involved
the savings of hundreds of thousands of people--small bankers,
tradesmen, preachers, lawyers, doctors, widows, institutions all over
the land, and all resting on the faith and security of Jay Cooke. Once,
not unlike the Chicago fire map, Cowperwood had seen a grand prospectus
and map of the location of the Northern Pacific land-grant which Cooke
had controlled, showing a vast stretch or belt of territory extending
from Duluth--"The Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," as Proctor Knott,
speaking in the House of Representatives, had sarcastically called
it--through the Rockies and the headwaters of the Missouri to the
Pacific Ocean. He had seen how Cooke had ostensibly managed to get
control of this government grant, containing millions upon millions of
acres and extending fourteen hundred miles in length; but it was only a
vision of empire. There might be silver and gold and copper mines there.
The land was usable--would some day be usable. But what of it now? It
would do to fire the imaginations of fools with--nothing more. It was
inaccessible, and would remain so for years to come. No doubt thousands
had subscribed to build this road; but, too, thousands would now fail
if it had failed. Now the crash had come. The grief and the rage of the
public would be intense. For days and days and weeks and months, normal
confidence and courage would be gone. This was his