iddleman, the ENTRE-PRENEUR, the elevator-and mixing-house men
dry and despairing, their occupation gone. He saw the farmer suddenly
emancipated, the world's food no longer at the mercy of the speculator,
thousands upon thousands of men set free of the grip of Trust and ring
and monopoly acting for themselves, selling their own wheat, organising
into one gigantic trust, themselves, sending their agents to all the
entry ports of China. Himself, Annixter, Broderson and Osterman would
pool their issues. He would convince them of the magnificence of the new
movement. They would be its pioneers. Harran would be sent to Hong Kong
to represent the four. They would charter--probably buy--a ship, perhaps
one of Cedarquist's, American built, the nation's flag at the peak, and
the sailing of that ship, gorged with the crops from Broderson's and
Osterman's ranches, from Quien Sabe and Los Muertos, would be like the
sailing of the caravels from Palos. It would mark a new era; it would
make an epoch.

With this vision still expanding before the eye of his mind, Magnus,
with Harran at his elbow, prepared to depart.

They descended to the lower floor and involved themselves for a moment
in the throng of fashionables that blocked the hallway and the entrance
to the main room, where the numbers of the raffle were being drawn. Near
the head of the stairs they encountered Presley and Cedarquist, who had
just come out of the wine room.

Magnus, still on fire with the new idea, pressed a few questions upon
the manufacturer before bidding him good-bye. He wished to talk further
upon the great subject, interested as to details, but Cedarquist was
vague in his replies. He was no farmer, he hardly knew wheat when he saw
it, only he knew the trend of the world's affairs; he felt them to be
setting inevitably eastward.

However, his very vagueness was a further inspiration to the Governor.
He swept details aside. He saw only the grand coup, the huge results,
the East conquered, the march of empire rolling westward, finally
arriving at its starting point, the vague, mysterious Orient.

He saw his wheat, like the crest of an advancing billow, crossing the
Pacific, bursting upon Asia, flooding the Orient in a golden torrent. It
was the new era. He had lived to see the death of the old and the birth
of the new; first the mine, now the ranch; first gold, now wheat. Once
again he became the pioneer, hardy, brilliant, taking colossal chances,
blazin