"Demand! Supply!" Wade echoed contemptuously. "Economics be hanged! It means a fight for Western Air. It means that somebody is willing to pay a fancy price for shares. Why? Because a few shares one way or the other mean the ownership of the road, the dictation of its policy. There's no other explanation. I wonder who——"
"Look at this," said Clyde. She handed him a telegram. He read:
Sell nothing whatever until you hear from me. Instruct Bradley & Gauss.
Jim.
Wade's lips puckered in a noiseless whistle. He did not need to be told that "Jim" was Clyde's uncle, wily old Jim Hess, of the Hess System. It was he who was out gunning for York and Western Air, and he had the reputation of getting what he went after. What his tactics had been Wade could only surmise. But the antics of the stock were proof that he was in earnest.
"Well," he queried, "what do you know about this, young lady? Have you been holding out on me?"
"I haven't much information," she replied. "Bradley & Gauss are my brokers. They have been buying Western Air for me as it was offered. There's their statement. Uncle Jim told me to buy it—said that it ought to be worth as much as Hess System some day."
"Heavens! What a tip!" Wade exclaimed. "This will be good news for Casey."
"I don't want him to know."
"Why not?"