hoe. I am long a
thousand or two, you are ditto for five hundred, and we hold fifteen
hundred in trust for your friend Hardy and this islander, Hutton.
Whether to unload now and make four points or hold for a big stake, is
the question. It's a gamble either way."

And this, be it said, fairly represented the situation.

But Simmons, who really held the key to this well-set trap, knew very
well that he had the street all guessing, and more than that, was just
the man to keep them at it. He sold and he bought a little stock each
day, just to keep it active and quoted. He could have bought every share
on the street if necessary, but that was not his game. What he did want
was to aid the bull pool that had been formed, for every share they
bought meant one more short of that share, and when the time came, one
more scared bear to bid it up. It was an unscrupulous scheme, but one
continually being worked in one way or another by these legalized
gamblers.

Then, as if the devil came to Simmons's aid, Rockhaven began to be
quoted in the bucket shops, and the crowd there, as usual, were all
bulls. It is a strange fact, but true, that every lamb who goes into one
of these wool-shearing offices is always sure to buy, expecting an
advance. With him, stocks are bound to advance--never go down. If they
do, he feels it's only for the time being, and they must go up again,
and so he foolishly puts up more margins, and still more, and the crafty
thief who manages this robber's den assures him he is right; they are
bound to go up, and in privacy smiles at the innocence of his victim.
And so the shearing goes on.

In this case it helped the arch-plotter, Simmons, and his backer,
Weston, for as the stock held firm, those who were short of it at two,
three, and four, had no chance to cover. Then as it began to creep up a
little, to even up their shortage they sold still more, and every few
days a paid item in the _Market News_ helped matters on. What they were
need not be stated. They were all to the same purpose, and that to
create confidence in Rockhaven, and as usual every bear on the street
discounted these statements and felt more certain that Rockhavens were
without substantial value.

And they were right.

Meanwhile Weston, the great financier, as he now felt himself to be,
rubbed his hands with satisfaction and concocted more news items; and
Simmons hobnobbed with the street, assuring one and all of the other
speculative lia