gging" he had a big job on his hands,
especially in view of the fact that he was treated for the most part as
a meddler who was not entitled to reliable information.

There are two ways of reaching a conclusion--one by approaching it
logically on facts laid down; the other by jumping to it across a
yawning lack of detail. At the end of his month of investigation the
farmer's scout had a regular rag-bag of material out of which to
fashion a patchwork report. A grain man might have condemned it as a
"crazy quilt" because bits of high color obtruded inharmoniously. But
if here and there an end was short or a bit of information on the bias,
it was because the "Farmers' Representative" had not been treated with
sufficient frankness. He had to make the best of the materials allowed
him and his natural tendency to bright-colored metaphor may have been
quickened. He hit out straight from the shoulder in all sincerity at
conditions as they appeared to him.

He thought he saw five companies controlling the exporting business,
and also their margin of profit, so that they were able to keep out
smaller dealers who might have the temerity and the necessary capital
to try exporting on their own account. He saw the smaller dealers in
turn stem-winding their prices by those of the exporters, controlling
the prices paid for street and track wheat throughout the country;
thereby, he reasoned, it became possible to set special prices at any
given point by the simple expedient of wiring the necessary
instructions to the operator at that point to pinch independent
competition. He saw elevator companies cutting their charges at
certain points to kill off competition from "farmers' elevators" which
sold to independent dealers. All this he was sure he saw.

The sampling appeared to be carried on in a systematic and satisfactory
manner. The grading, too, appeared to be uniform enough as regarded
the standard grades; but in the item of color there seemed just cause
for complaint. Lack of color, a trifling number of imperfectly formed
kernels or the suspicion of a wrinkle on the bran apparently doomed a
sample to low grade no matter how heavy and flinty the wheat might be.

This seemed scarcely fair to Partridge, who bore in mind that the sunny
seasons of past years had been succeeded by cloudier ones, the dry
autumns by wet ones and that with stacking discontinued and much of the
farmers' wheat left long in stock, bleaching was boun