red from the halls of the Valley
helped rather than hurt his meeting. The barring proved to the workers
the righteousness of their demands. So Grant sallied forth to locate a
vacant lot; he shot out of his room full of the force of his enthusiasm,
but his force met another force as strong as his, and ruthless. God's
free out of doors, known and beloved of Grant from his boyhood, was
preempted: What he found in his quest for a meeting place was a large
red sign, "No trespassing," upon the nearest vacant lot, and a special
policeman parading back and forth in front of the lot on the sidewalk.
He found a score of lots similarly placarded and patrolled. He sent men
to Magnus and Foley scurrying like ants through the Valley, but no lot
was available.

Up town in Harvey, the ants also were busy. The company was sending men
over Market Street, picking out the few individuals who owned vacant
lots, leasing them for the month and preparing to justify the placarding
and patrolling that already had been done. One of the ants that went
hurrying out of the Sands hill on this errand, was John Kollander, and
after he had seen Wright & Perry and the few other merchants who owned
South Harvey real estate, he encountered Captain Ezra Morton, who
happened to have a vacant lot, given to the Captain in the first flush
of the South Harvey boom, in return for some service to Daniel Sands.
John Kollander explained his errand to the Captain, who nodded wisely,
and stroked his goatee meditatively.

"I got to think it over," he bawled, and walked away, leaving John
Kollander puzzled and dismayed. But Captain Morton spent no time in
academic debate. In half an hour he was in South Harvey, climbing the
stairs of the Vanderbilt House, and knocking at Grant Adams's door.
Throwing open the door Grant found Captain Morton, standing to attention
with a shotgun in his hands. The Captain marched in, turned a square
corner to a chair, but slumped into it with a relieved sigh.

"Well, Grant--I heard your speech this morning to the Merchants'
Association. You're crazy as a bed bug--eh? That's what I told 'em all.
And then they said to let you go to it--you couldn't get a hall, and the
company could keep you off the lots all over the Valley, and if you
tried to speak on the streets they'd run you in--what say?" His old eyes
snapped with some virility, and he lifted up his voice and cried:

"But 'y gory--is that the way to do a man, I says? No--why, that ai