icago elevators influence you," Ford was saying to the
anxious inquirers. "And, apart from that, everything is going our way.
As I have remarked, our stock at the present figure is good enough for
me, and I only wish I had two hundred thousand, instead of twenty
thousand, to put into it."

Brewster stopped chuckling long enough to hold up a finger to the
broker. "You may buy for my account, too, Mackie, while you are at
it--and keep on buying till I tell you to quit."

This broke the deadlock instantly, and for a few minutes the board room
was as noisy as the wheat pit with a corner threatening. Brewster, still
laughing in his beard, pulled Ford out of the press at the broker's end
of the table.

"I'm going to ask only one thing of you, young man," he began, his
shrewd little eyes twinkling. "Just let me know when you are going to
get out, so I can pull through without having to take the bankruptcy."

[Illustration: "Will you be good enough to buy for my account, Mr.
Mackie"]

"I'll do it, Mr. Brewster," laughed Ford. "Only I'm not going to get
out--unless you folks freeze me out."

"Then it isn't a long bluff on your part?"

"It is, and it isn't. We still stand to win if we have the nerve to hold
on--in which event P. S-W. at twenty-nine and a fraction is a gold mine.
That's one view of it, and the other is this: we've simply _got_ to
corner our own stock if we expect to sell thirty millions additional
bonds."

"Well, I guess you've gone the right way about it. But are you sure
about these Chicago terminals? A legal friend of mine here says you'll
never get in."

"He was possibly paid to say it," said Ford hotly. "There has never been
a shadow of doubt touching our trackage rights on the C. P. & D.
contracts, or upon our ability to maintain them. All the
Transcontinental people hoped to do was to make a newspaper stir to help
keep our stock down. They know what we are going to do to them over in
their western territory, and they won't stop at anything to block us."

"Of course; I think we were all inclined to be a little short-sighted
and pessimistic here, Mr. Ford. When do you go back to your fighting
ground?"

"To-night."

"You won't wait to see what happens here?"

"I don't need to, I am sure. And the minutes--my minutes--are worth
dollars to the company just now."

"Well, go in and win--only don't forget to give me that tip. You
wouldn't want to see a man of my age going to the poorhouse."

"On