Mr. Thompson stopped putting out any more stock and streaked it up to Cobalt to see what was going on. He had a hard time laying hold of the inside facts, but learned enough to satisfy himself that rich ore had been encountered at depth. He discovered on his return to New York that Captain Delamar had been buying that cheap stock through S. H. P. Pell & Company and was even then the heaviest individual holder, a position contested only once during the whole campaign, and that by a rank outsider operating through Eugene Meyer, Jr., whose name has never been publicly mentioned as having anything to do with the gamble. This "unknown" was a quiet, mild-spoken, college-bred gentleman. He pulled down $1,500,000 in Nipissing—and kept it.
Upon the return of Mr. Thompson from Cobalt the promoters warmed up to their job. The manipulation which had been begun in a comparatively modest way now showed the spirit of the gambler who plays "the ceiling for the limit." New market-boosting accessories were called into use. They did their work. The game waxed hotter and hotter.
THE GUGGENHEIMS ENTER NIPISSING
Boom! Boom! Boom! went Nipissing. By the time the price crossed $20 the gamblers and speculators of two continents were on fire with excitement. Presently it became noised about that the Guggenheim family had taken an option on 400,000 shares of Nipissing stock at $25 a share, making the investment $10,000,000, and putting a valuation of $32,000,000 on the property. Furthermore, it was announced that the deal had been made on the report and advice of John Hays Hammond, the international mining engineer, crony of Cecil Rhodes and famed as the head of the profession. As a part and parcel of the remarkable story, it was authoritatively stated that the Guggenheims had paid $2,500,000 cash for the option. W. B. Thompson was said to have negotiated the transaction.
Confirmation of the deal set the gamblers crazy. There could be no risk in following such leadership as the Guggenheims', endorsed by the eminent Hammond. The market boiled up to $30 and then majestically boomed to $33.25. Transactions in this single issue totaled hundreds of thousands of shares a day. Waiters, bar-keepers, tailors, seamstresses and tenderloin beauties competed with bankers, merchants, professionals on the regular exchanges, and even ministers of the Gospel, for the privilege of buying Nipissing shares on a valuation of more than $40,000,000 for the mine.
On the way up the original bunch of insiders floated out of their holdings. Most of them had cashed in under $20. Some of them stayed out; others went back, and, like the moth, got burned. W. B. Thompson, it is said, parted with the bulk of his 250,000 to 300,000 shares at from $24.50 up, cleaning up for personal account between $4,500,000 and $5,000,000, according to the estimates of close friends then in his confidence. Never was there a cleaner case of "finding" money for Mr. Thompson. The manipulative campaign, of which he was made manager, was a giant success. The only ability or skill needed, after the Guggenheim deal was made—brilliant deal from a market standpoint!—was the sense to hold on to his optioned stock until his associates, the Guggenheim following, and the public made a rich, ripe and juicy market for it.
Mr. Thompson subsequently participated in Cumberland-Ely, El Reyo, Inspiration, La Rose, Utah Copper, Mason Valley, and other mining promotions, and is now rated at $10,000,000 to $12,000,000. He is generally prominent at the nutritious or selling end when a good market exists and is now head of a New York Stock Exchange brokerage and mining promotion firm which publishes its own newspaper.
But what happened to Nipissing? Plenty, and then some, happened. As noted, the stock mounted by flying leaps to $33.25, stayed well above $30 for quite a while, and began slowly to recede. Complacent in the consciousness that they had the biggest silver mine in the world, the Guggenheims allowed all of their friends to share in their good fortune.
Of a sudden, stock from mysterious sources began to press on the market. It came in great quantity and without let-up. Suspicion was aroused in the Guggenheim camp. They despatched A. Chester Beatty, one of their very best expert engineers, and a former protege of John Hays Hammond, to Cobalt to smell out the trouble. The text of his report was never printed. It didn't have to be. The facts beat it in.
Much of the showy mineral, on which glowing reports as to the fabulous value of the property had been based, contained little or no silver. It was smaltite, an ore of the metal cobalt, closely resembling many of the silver ores.