was
selling at forty-three. At that figure, over forty millions of dollars
would be required to buy the road. There was little or no chance of its
reaching a higher quotation during the coming ninety days; and ninety
days would bring them into February with Congress in session over two
months.

No, it was not the purpose of the pool to buy Northern Consolidated at
forty-three; those gifted stock ospreys knew a better plan. They would
begin with a "bear" movement against the stock. It was their belief, if
the market were properly undermined, that Northern Consolidated could be
sold down below twenty, possibly as low as fifteen. When it had reached
lowest levels they would make their swoop. The pool would have enough
profit from the "bear" movement to pay for the road. If they succeeded
in selling Northern Consolidated off twenty points--and they believed,
by going cautiously and intelligently to work, the feat was easy--the
profits would equal the purchase sum required.

In "bearing" the stock and breaking it down to a point where the pool
might seize upon the road without risk or outlay on its own intriguing
part, the potent Senator Hanway would come in. At the beginning of
Congress he must offer a Senate resolution for a special committee of
three to investigate certain claims and charges against Northern
Consolidated. That corporation had long owed the government, no one knew
how much. It had stolen timber and stripped mountain ranges with its
larcenies; also it had laid rapacious paw upon vast stretches of the
public domain. It was within the power of any committee, acting
honestly, to report Northern Consolidated as in default to the
government for what number of millions its indignant imagination might
fix upon. Who was to measure the road's lumber robberies, or those
thefts of land? Moreover, the vandal aggressions of Northern
Consolidated made a reason for rescinding divers public grants--the
present values whereof were almost too high for estimation, and without
which the road could not exist--that, in its inception as a railroad,
had been made it by Congress.

Senator Hanway, under Senate courtesies, would be named chairman of the
special committees. He would conduct the investigation and write the
report. It was reasonable to assume, under the public as well as the
private conditions named, that Senator Hanway's findings, and the Senate
action he must urge and bring about, would knock the bottom out of
Nor