ay kept his head. All the world was buying then, but wherever he
could Barclay sold. He bought only where he had to, and paid cash for
what he bought. He did not owe a dollar for anything. He had no
equities; his titles were all good. And as he neared his forties he
believed that he could sell what he had at forced sale for many
millions. He was supposed to be much richer than he was, but the one
thing that he knew about it was that scores of other men had more than
he. So he kept staring into space and pressing the button for his
stenographer, and at night wherever his work found him, whether in
Boston or in Chicago or in San Francisco, he hunted up the place where
he could hear the best music, and sat listening with his eyes closed.
He always kept his note-book in his hand, when Jane was not with him,
and when an idea came to him inspired by the music, he jotted it down,
and the next day, if it stood the test of a night's sleep, he turned
the idea into an event.

In planning his work he was ruthless. He learned that by bribing men
in the operating department of any railroad he could find out what his
competitors were doing. And in the main offices of the National
Provisions Company two rooms full of clerks were devoted to
considering the duplicate way-bills of every car of flour or grain or
grain product not shipped by the Barclay companies. Thus he was able
to delay the cars of his competitors, and get his own cars through on
time. Thus he was able to bribe buyers in wholesale establishments to
push his products. And with Lige Bemis manipulating the railroad and
judiciary committees in the legislatures of ten states, no laws were
enacted which might hamper Barclay's activities.

"Do you know, Lucy," said General Ward to his wife one night when they
were discussing Barclay and his ways and works, "sometimes I think
that what that boy saw at Wilson's Creek,--the horrible bloodshed,
the deadly spectacle of human suffering at the hospital wagon, some
way blinded his soul's eye to right and wrong. It was all a man could
stand; the picture must have seared the boy's heart like a fire."

Mrs. Ward, who was mending little clothes in the light of the
dining-room lamp, put down her work a moment and said: "I have always
thought the colonel had some such idea. For once when he was speaking
of the way John stole that wheat land, he said, 'Well, poor John, he
got a wound at Wilson's Creek that never will heal,' and when I asked