st be taken by
a receiver until the public is repaid--the public indeed! Then those
priceless grants are to be repealed. Northern Consolidated is to be
stabbed with a score of knives at once. Beautiful! What a trap they have
set for themselves!"

Richard, not knowing what reply might be expected, smiled to fetch his
countenance into sympathy with Mr. Bayard's, and retreated to his usual
refuge of a cigar.

"Now," went on Mr. Bayard briskly, "I can give you the rougher outlines
of what will occur. This report, as I told you, may be weeks in finding
its way into the Senate. Stocks opened the year very strong; the markets
are upon an upgrade. While the boom continues, the pool will do
nothing. The moment prices show a weakness our friends will act. Given
three days of falling prices, this report will come out. The Senate will
be invoked to an attack upon Northern Consolidated. The pool will spring
upon the market, right and left, selling thousands upon thousands of
shares. They will try for a stampede. They look to drop Northern
Consolidated twenty-five points, as woodmen fell a tree."

"And what is to be our course?" asked Richard.

"We shall buy every share of Northern Consolidated as fast as it is
offered; go with them to the end. They will find themselves in their own
net.

"Since our first talk," Mr. Bayard continued, "I have been gathering
information. Of the one million shares which form the stock of Northern
Consolidated, over six hundred thousand are held in England, France,
Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, and even a bundle or two in Sweden.
I shall keep the cables warm to-morrow. The day following, our agents
will be quietly buying those European shares at private sale in London,
Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Stockholm, wherever they
are to be found. Should they give us a week, we shall have so narrowed
the field of operations for our 'bears' that their first day's sales
will land them in a corner. Once we have them penned, we may take our
time. They will be as helpless as so many caged animals."

When Storri on that jealous evening left the San Reve, his nerves were
somewhat tossed and shaken. It was not over-late; he would stroll to the
club by roundabout paths, the walk and cold night air might steady him.

That roundabout route led Storri past the Treasury Building, and, as he
slowly paced the pavement bordering one side of the massive structure,
he was brought to sudden stop by a