Cowperwood calculated its shares,
bonds, rolling-stock, and other physical properties as totaling in the
vicinity of over two million dollars. The trouble with this company was
that its outstanding stock was principally controlled by Norman
Schryhart, who was now decidedly inimical to Cowperwood, or anything he
might wish to do, and by Anson Merrill, who had never manifested any
signs of friendship. He did not see how he was to get control of this
property. Its shares were selling around two hundred and fifty dollars.

The North Chicago City Railway was a corporation which had been
organized at the same time as the South Side company, but by a
different group of men. Its management was old, indifferent, and
incompetent, its equipment about the same. The Chicago West Division
Railway had originally been owned by the Chicago City or South Side
Railway, but was now a separate corporation. It was not yet so
profitable as the other divisions of the city, but all sections of the
city were growing. The horse-bell was heard everywhere tinkling gaily.

Standing on the outside of this scene, contemplating its promise,
Cowperwood much more than any one else connected financially with the
future of these railways at this time was impressed with their enormous
possibilities--their enormous future if Chicago continued to grow, and
was concerned with the various factors which might further or impede
their progress.

Not long before he had discovered that one of the chief handicaps to
street-railway development, on the North and West Sides, lay in the
congestion of traffic at the bridges spanning the Chicago River.
Between the street ends that abutted on it and connected the two sides
of the city ran this amazing stream--dirty, odorous, picturesque,
compact of a heavy, delightful, constantly crowding and moving boat
traffic, which kept the various bridges momentarily turning, and tied
up the street traffic on either side of the river until it seemed at
times as though the tangle of teams and boats would never any more be
straightened out. It was lovely, human, natural, Dickensesque--a fit
subject for a Daumier, a Turner, or a Whistler. The idlest of
bridge-tenders judged for himself when the boats and when the teams
should be made to wait, and how long, while in addition to the regular
pedestrians a group of idlers stood at gaze fascinated by the crowd of
masts, the crush of wagons, and the picturesque tugs in the foreground