building was dark. The elevator was
not running. They were hungry and terrified. Step by step they groped
their trembling way downstairs, and staggered with their treasure through
the perilous streets to the Grand Pacific Hotel. None of them ever forgot
the terror of that night.

Another warlike Reaper King was "Bill" Whiteley, of Ohio. Whiteley had
invented a combined mower and reaper in 1858, which he named the
"Champion"; and he pushed this machine with an irresistible enthusiasm.

His mode of attack was not the patent suit, but the field test. This was
the white-hot climax of the rivalry among the reaper kings; and it was
great sport for the farmers. It was a reaper circus--a fierce chariot-race
in a wheat-field; and its influence upon the industry was remarkable. It
weeded out the low-grade machines. It spurred on the manufacturers to a
campaign of improvement. It developed American harvesters to the highest
point of perfection. It swung the farmers into the new path of scientific
agriculture. And it piled expenses so high that few of the reaper kings
escaped disaster.

A field test was conducted in this fashion: A committee of judges was
appointed, and several acres of ripe grain were selected as the
battle-field. After the field was marked off into equal sections, each
reaper took its place. There were sometimes two reapers and sometimes
forty. The signal was given. "Crack"--the horses leaped; the drivers
shouted; and hundreds of farmers surged up and down in excited crowds.

[Illustration: ASA S. BUSHNELL

BENJAMIN H. WARDER

HON. THOMAS MOTT OSBORNE

DAVID M. OSBORNE]

"All's fair in a field test," said the reaper agents who superintended
these contests; though each man said it to himself. They were a hardy and
reckless body of men, half cowboy, half mechanic, and no trick was too
dangerous or too desperate for them. Often the feud was so bitter that
bodyguards of big-fisted "bulldozers" were on the spot to protect the
warrior of their tribe who was in danger. "I had four men with me once who
together weighed 1,000 pounds," said A. E. Mayer, who is now the general
of an army of 40,000 salesmen. In most tests the machines were shamefully
abused. Self-binders were made to cut and bind stubble as though it were
grain. Mowers were driven full tilt against stumps and hop-poles. Rival
reapers were chained back to back and yanked apart by plunging horses. The
warrior agents exposed the weak points in eac