hered there, crazed with the spirit
of speculation. Men were around him whose clothes were shining with
bitumen. The air was loaded with the smell of petroleum. Derricks were
thrown up on every side; drills were at work piercing the earth;
villages were starting among stumps still fresh at the top, as if their
trees were cut but yesterday; rough men in high boots were ranging the
country; the depots were glutted with portable Steam-engines and all
sorts of mining machinery, and there was but one subject of
conversation. Some new well had begun to flow with hundreds of barrels
of petroleum _per diem_. Some new man had made a fortune. Farmers, who
had barely been able to get a living from their sterile acres, had
become millionaires. The whole region was alive with fortune-hunters,
from every quarter of the country. Millions of dollars were in the
pockets of men who were ready to purchase. Seedy, crazy, visionary
fellows were working as middle-men, to talk up schemes, and win their
bread, with as much more as they could lay their hands on. The very air
was charged with the contagion of speculation, and men seemed ready to
believe anything and do anything. It appeared, indeed, as if a man had
only to buy, to double his money in a day; and half the insane multitude
believed it.

Mr. Belcher kept himself quiet, and defended himself from the influences
around him by adopting and holding his scoffing mood. He believed
nothing. He was there simply to see what asses men could make of
themselves; but he kept his ears open. The wretched hotel at which he at
last found accommodations was thronged with fortune-seekers, among whom
he moved self-possessed and quite at home. On the second day his mood
began to tell on those around him. There were men there who knew about
him and his great wealth--men who had been impressed with his sagacity.
He studied them carefully, gave no one his confidence, and quietly laid
his plans. On the evening of the third day he returned to the hotel, and
announced that he had had the good fortune to purchase a piece of
property that he proposed to operate and improve on his own account.

Then he was approached with propositions for forming a company. He had
paid fifty thousand dollars for a farm--paid the money--and before
morning he had sold half of it for what he gave for the whole, and
formed a company with the nominal capital of half a million of dollars,
a moiety of the stock being his own at no cost