when under its
protection the price advanced. He assaulted in force with large
selling orders; but the price pushed on and the fierce cannonade of
larger and larger buying orders kept up. When Great Lakes had mounted
in a dozen bounds from one hundred and seven to one hundred and
thirty-nine, he for the first time realized that he was facing not an
unorganized speculating public but a compact army, directed by a single
mind to a single purpose. "A lunatic--a lot of lunatics," he said,
having not the faintest suspicion of the reason for the creation of
these conditions of frenzy. Still, if this rise continued or was not
reversed the Fanning-Smiths would be ruined--by whom? "Some of those
Chicago bluffers," he finally decided. "I must throw a scare into I
them."

He could have withdrawn from the battle then with a pitiful remnant of
the Fanning-Smiths and their associates--that is, he thought he could,
for he did not dream of the existence of the "corner." But he chose
the opposite course. He flung off his disguise and boldly attacked the
stock with selling orders openly in the name of the Fanning-Smiths.

"When they see us apparently unloading our own ancestral property I
think they'll take to their heels," he said. But his face was pale as
he awaited the effect of his assault.

The price staggered, trembled. The clamor of the battle alarmed those
in the galleries of the Stock Exchange--Zabriskie's brokers selling,
the brokers of the mysterious speculator buying, the speculating public
through its brokers joining in on either side; men shrieking into each
other's faces as they danced round and round the Great Lakes pillar.
The price went down, went up, went down, down, down--Zabriskie had
hurled selling orders for nearly fifty thousand shares at it and Dumont
had commanded his guns to cease firing. He did not dare take any more
offerings; he had reached the end of the ammunition he had planned to
expend at that particular stage of the battle.

The alarm spread and, although Zabriskie ceased selling, the price
continued to fall under the assaults of the speculating public, mad to
get rid of that which its own best friends were so eagerly and so
frankly throwing over. Down, down, down to one hundred and twenty, to
one hundred and ten, to one hundred and five----

Zabriskie telephoned victory to his nominal commander, lifting him,
weak and trembling, from the depths into which he had fallen, to an at
least