t Reuben Vanderpoel, who in early days of danger had traded with
savages for the pelts of wild animals, was the lauded hero of stories
of thrift and enterprise. Throughout his hard-working life he had been
irresistibly impelled to action by an absolute genius of commerce,
expressing itself at the outset by the exhibition of courage in mere
exchange and barter. An alert power to perceive the potential value of
things and the possible malleability of men and circumstances, had stood
him in marvellous good stead. He had bought at low prices things which
in the eyes of the less discerning were worthless, but, having obtained
possession of such things, the less discerning had almost invariably
awakened to the fact that, in his hands, values increased, and methods
of remunerative disposition, being sought, were found. Nothing remained
unutilisable. The practical, sordid, uneducated little man developed the
power to create demand for his own supplies. If he was betrayed into
an error, he quickly retrieved it. He could live upon nothing and
consequently could travel anywhere in search of such things as he
desired. He could barely read and write, and could not spell, but he was
daring and astute. His untaught brain was that of a financier, his blood
burned with the fever of but one desire--the desire to accumulate. Money
expressed to his nature, not expenditure, but investment in such small
or large properties as could be resold at profit in the near or far
future. The future held fascinations for him. He bought nothing for his
own pleasure or comfort, nothing which could not be sold or bartered
again. He married a woman who was a trader's daughter and shared his
passion for gain. She was of North of England blood, her father having
been a hard-fisted small tradesman in an unimportant town, who had been
daring enough to emigrate when emigration meant the facing of unknown
dangers in a half-savage land. She had excited Reuben Vanderpoel's
admiration by taking off her petticoat one bitter winter's day to sell
it to a squaw in exchange for an ornament for which she chanced to know
another squaw would pay with a skin of value. The first Mrs. Vanderpoel
was as wonderful as her husband. They were both wonderful. They were
the founders of the fortune which a century and a half later was the
delight--in fact the piece de resistance--of New York society reporters,
its enormity being restated in round figures when a blank space must be
fill