any
holder who had merely purchased his stock as an outsider. It was most
profitable to himself. When his stocks earned more than that he issued
new ones, selling them on 'change and pocketing the difference. Out of
the cash-drawers of his various companies he took immense sums,
temporary loans, as it were, which later he had charged by his humble
servitors to "construction," "equipment," or "operation." He was like a
canny wolf prowling in a forest of trees of his own creation.

The weak note in this whole project of elevated lines was that for some
time it was destined to be unprofitable. Its very competition tended
to weaken the value of his surface-line companies. His holdings in
these as well as in elevated-road shares were immense. If anything
happened to cause them to fall in price immense numbers of these same
stocks held by others would be thrown on the market, thus still further
depreciating their value and compelling him to come into the market and
buy. With the most painstaking care he began at once to pile up a
reserve in government bonds for emergency purposes, which he decided
should be not less than eight or nine million dollars, for he feared
financial storms as well as financial reprisal, and where so much was
at stake he did not propose to be caught napping.

At the time that Cowperwood first entered on elevated-road construction
there was no evidence that any severe depression in the American
money-market was imminent. But it was not long before a new difficulty
began to appear. It was now the day of the trust in all its watery
magnificence. Coal, iron, steel, oil, machinery, and a score of other
commercial necessities had already been "trustified," and others, such
as leather, shoes, cordage, and the like, were, almost hourly, being
brought under the control of shrewd and ruthless men. Already in
Chicago Schryhart, Hand, Arneel, Merrill, and a score of others were
seeing their way to amazing profits by underwriting these ventures
which required ready cash, and to which lesser magnates, content with a
portion of the leavings of Dives's table, were glad to bring to their
attention. On the other hand, in the nation at large there was growing
up a feeling that at the top there were a set of giants--Titans--who,
without heart or soul, and without any understanding of or sympathy
with the condition of the rank and file, were setting forth to enchain
and enslave them. The vast mass, writhing in