oose stocks that the combine and Stoddard were fighting,
with thousands of the public buying in, and as the price of some stock
was jigged up and down it was the public that cast the die.

If the people were convinced that a certain stock was good and refused
to be shaken down, the price of that stock went up. But if the people,
through what they had read, decided that the stock was bad; then there
was a panic that nothing could stop and the big interests snapped up
the spoils. So much Rimrock learned from Buckbee, and Mrs. Hardesty
told him the rest. It was her judgment, really, that he came to rely
upon; though Buckbee was right, in the main. He told the facts, but
she went behind them and showed who was pulling the strings.

It was from her that he had learned of the mighty press agencies--which
at the moment were making much of his coup--and how shrewd financiers
like the Hackmeisters or Stoddard used them constantly to influence the
market. If it became known, for instance, that Rimrock Jones was
plunging on Navajoa and that within three days he had doubled his money
and was still holding out for a rise; that was big news for Hackmeister
and his papers made the most of it. But if Navajoa went down and some
broker's clerk lost his holdings and committed embezzlement, or if a
mining engineer made an adverse report, or the company passed a
dividend, then Stoddard's press agents would make the most of each
item--if he wished the stock to go down. Otherwise it would not be
mentioned. It was by following out such subtleties and closely
studying the tape, that brokers like Buckbee guessed out each move in
advance and were able to earn their commissions.

But all this information did not come to Rimrock for nothing--there was
a price which had to be paid. For reasons of her own the dashing Mrs.
Hardesty appeared frequently in the Waldorf lobby, and when Rimrock
came in with any of his friends he was expected to introduce them. And
Rimrock's friends in that swarming hotel were as numerous as they were
in Gunsight. He expected no less, wherever he went, than the
friendship of every man; and if any held back, for any reason, he
marked him as quickly for an enemy. He was as open-hearted and free in
those marble corridors and in the velvet-hung club and cafe as the old
Rimrock had been on the streets of Gunsight when he spoke to every
Mexican.

It was his day of triumph, this return to the Waldorf where before he