deafening, blinding.

Jadwin sprang forward, gripping the broker by the shoulder.

"Sam," he shouted, "do you know--great God!--do you know what this
means? Sam, we can corner the market!"

VIII

On that particular morning in April, the trading around the Wheat Pit
on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade began practically a full
five minutes ahead of the stroke of the gong; and the throng of brokers
and clerks that surged in and about the Pit itself was so great that it
overflowed and spread out over the floor between the wheat and corn
pits, ousting the traders in oats from their traditional ground. The
market had closed the day before with May wheat at ninety-eight and
five-eighths, and the Bulls had prophesied and promised that the magic
legend "Dollar wheat" would be on the Western Union wires before
another twenty-four hours.

The indications pointed to a lively morning's work. Never for an
instant during the past six weeks had the trading sagged or languished.
The air of the Pit was surcharged with a veritable electricity; it had
the effervescence of champagne, or of a mountain-top at sunrise. It was
buoyant, thrilling.

The "Unknown Bull" was to all appearance still in control; the whole
market hung upon his horns; and from time to time, one felt the sudden
upward thrust, powerful, tremendous, as he flung the wheat up another
notch. The "tailers"--the little Bulls--were radiant. In the dark, they
hung hard by their unseen and mysterious friend who daily, weekly, was
making them richer. The Bears were scarcely visible. The Great Bull in
a single superb rush had driven them nearly out of the Pit. Growling,
grumbling they had retreated, and only at distance dared so much as to
bare a claw. Just the formidable lowering of the Great Bull's frontlet
sufficed, so it seemed, to check their every move of aggression or
resistance. And all the while, Liverpool, Paris, Odessa, and Buda-Pesth
clamoured ever louder and louder for the grain that meant food to the
crowded streets and barren farms of Europe.

A few moments before the opening Charles Cressler was in the public
room, in the southeast corner of the building, where smoking was
allowed, finishing his morning's cigar. But as he heard the distant
striking of the gong, and the roar of the Pit as it began to get under
way, with a prolonged rumbling trepidation like the advancing of a
great flood, he threw his cigar away and stepped out from the public