"You will, if I know my opponents," said Haldane significantly. "Take off two more dollars, and, if there are any buyers, don't let them think you're not in earnest. You can put another of your friends on."

The broker departed and left me wondering. It struck me that to reduce the value by open quotations should have been enough, without saddling ourselves with contracts when we did not hold the stock; but it seemed that cautious slowness was not Haldane's way. He next insisted on playing billiards with me, and he played as well as I did badly, for my fingers had grown stiff from the grip of the plow-stilts and bridle, and we had small opportunity for such amusements on the prairie. Nothing of importance happened during the remainder of the day, but I have a clear recollection of how the throb of life from the busy city reacted on me as we sat together on a balcony outside the smoking-room after dinner. It was a hot night, and the streets were filled with citizens seeking coolness in the open air. The place seemed alive with moving figures that came and went endlessly under the glare of the great arc lights, while the stir and brilliancy appeared unreal to me. The air throbbed with voices, the clank of great freight trains in the station, and the hum of trolley cars; while only one narrow strip of sky appeared between the rows of stores, and that strip was barred by a maze of interlacing wires. I felt as though I had awakened from a century's sleep on the prairie.

"Somewhat different from Crane Valley," said Haldane, pointing with his cigar towards the crowded wires. "I wonder how many of those are charged with our business—it is tolerably certain that some of them are. We have cheerfully thrown down the glove, and now the forces of fire and air and water are all pressed into the service of spreading our challenge across the continent. There's a mammoth printing machine in yonder building reeling it off by the thousands of copies every hour in its commercial reports, and those papers will be rushed east and west to warn holders in Quebec or Vancouver to-night. Also, by this time, Lane, wherever he is, will be spending money like water to keep the wires humming. Feel uneasy about the explosion now that you have helped to fire the train?"

"I feel curious both as to why you should take so much trouble to help us, sir, and as to the enemy's first move," I said.

"To keep myself from rusting, for one thing, and because Lane is one man too many down our way," was the careless answer. "If that does not appear a sufficient motive I may perhaps mention another when we have won. As to the other affair, Lane will, so long as his means hold out, buy—or urge his friends to—while we sell. Just how far can you and the men behind you go?"

I named a sum, which Haldane noted. "With what Boone and I have decided to put up it will be enough if all goes well. If not—but we will not trouble about that. This contract strikes me as a trifle too big for Lane," he said.

I retired early, but scarcely slept all night. I felt that the struggle would commence in earnest on the morrow, and Haldane's words had warned me that our nerve and treasury might be taxed to the utmost before we made good the challenge we had so lightly, it seemed to me, sent broadcast across the Dominion.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE

I rose early next morning, and a stroll through the awakening city, which was cool and fresh as yet, braced me for the stress of the day. Haldane looked thoughtful at breakfast; Boone was silent and suspiciously stolid, for he betrayed himself by the very slowness with which he folded back the newspaper brought him to expose the commercial reports. He handed it to Haldane, who nodded, saying nothing. It was a relief to me, at least, when the meal was over, but afterwards the morning passed very heavily, for I spent most of it haunting a dark telephone box, where Haldane received and dispatched cabalistic messages. I did not approve of conflict of this description, in which the uninitiated could neither follow the points lost or won nor see the enemy, and I should have preferred the hay-fork and a background of sunlit prairie.