ed a high price.

Accordingly, on June 1st the new abattoir was opened. Every precaution
against waste had, it seemed, been taken, and for fear lest the branch
houses in Kansas City, Bismarck, and elsewhere should be unable to
absorb the output of the slaughter-house and interrupt its steady
operation, the Marquis secured a building on West Jackson Street,
Chicago, where the wholesale dealers in dressed beef had their stalls,
with the purpose of there disposing of his surplus.

[Illustration: Hotel de Mores.]

[Illustration: The abattoir of the Marquis de Mores.]

A hundred head of cattle were slaughtered daily at the new abattoir.
At last the plant was efficient. The Marquis had a right to
congratulate himself. But unexpectedly a fresh obstacle to success
obtruded itself. The experts had been wrong; the beef proved of
poor quality. The branch houses disposed of it with difficulty, and
the retail dealers in Chicago refused to buy. Although dressed beef
was produced there in enormous quantities for Eastern markets, the
local consumer had a prejudice against cold-storage meat. He did not
like grass-fed beef, moreover. It was as good or better than corn-fed
beef, but he was not accustomed to it, and would not change his habits
even at a saving.

It was a staggering blow, but the Marquis was a fighting man and he
took it without wincing. Packard, discussing the situation with him
one day, pointed out to him that the cattle could not possibly be
stall-fed before they were slaughtered as no cattle feed was raised
short of the corn country, hundreds of miles to the south.

The Marquis was not noticeably perturbed by this recital of an obvious
fact. "I am arranging to buy up the hop crop of the Pacific coast," he
answered calmly. "This I will sell to the Milwaukee and St. Louis
brewers on an agreement that they shall return to me all the resultant
malt after their beer is made. This I will bring to Medora in tank
cars. It is the most concentrated and fattening food to be bought. I
will cover the town site south of the track with individual
feeding-pens; thousands of them. Not only can I hold fat cattle as
long as I wish, but I will feed cattle all the year round and always
have enough to keep the abattoir running."

There was something gorgeous in the Marquis's inability to know when
he was beaten. His power of self-hypnotism was in fact, amazing, and
the persistence with which he pursued new bubbles, in his efforts to