“How much money do you expect me to put up, Mr. Manson?”
“You couldn’t invest twenty millions, I suppose?”
“Twenty millions! Heavens and earth, no! It would practically clean me out to furnish nine.”
“I mentioned the bigger amount simply because I am sure you will double your money within a month, and the more you put in, the more you’re going to take out. You see, this is not a speculation, but a certainty.”
For a few minutes Steele walked up and down the room, hands deep in his pockets, as was his custom, brow wrinkled and head bent. At last he said, with the old ring of decision in his voice:
“All right, Mr. Manson, I’ll go in; but if I fail, you must give me the vice-presidency, as a sort of consolation prize.”
“I’ll give it to you now,” said Manson. “But it can’t fail. I tell you everything is in my hands. It is not as if this were any bluff. The proposed line is a road that is becoming more and more needed every day, and the land is good for the money, even if the road were never built. It’s as safe as government bonds.”
It would be going over ground already sufficiently covered to recount the history of the Western Land Syndicate. Steele had resolved not to invest more than half his fortune; but once a man is involved in an important enterprise, he rarely can predict where he will stop. A scheme grows and grows, and often the financier is compelled to involve himself more and more deeply in order to protect the money already ventured, and finally it becomes all or nothing. Besides this, every speculator is something of the gambler, and once the game has begun, the betting fever has him in its clutch. Before a month was past, Steele had not only paid over every dollar he possessed, but had also become deeply indebted to his bank. In borrowing from the bank he made his irretrievable mistake. As the president had said, the land was intrinsically worth the money paid for it; and if John Steele had merely risked his own assets, he might have been penniless for ten years, but he would ultimately have been sure of getting back what he paid, and probably a good deal more. But to borrow hundreds of thousands at sixty days, in the expectation that he would take profits enough to pay the loan before that time expired, was an action he himself, in less feverish moments, would have been the first to condemn. He felt the utmost confidence in his old friend, the new president, and it may be said at once that Manson throughout the history of what was known as the Great Land Bubble, was perfectly honest and sincere. He was merely a pawn on the board, moved by an unseen force of which he knew nothing.
On the afternoon of the day when the final payment on the land was made, the president of the Wheat Belt Line entered the room of his subordinate with a piece of paper in his hand. His face was white as chalk and he could not speak. He dropped into a chair, before John Steele’s desk, and the latter, with a premonition of what was coming, took the paper from his trembling hand. It was a telegram from New York, and ran as follows:
The Peter Berrington Estate has acquired control of the Wheat Belt system. The new Board of Directors yesterday resolved to abandon the Wisconsin Pacific Branch. If the branch is built at all, which is doubtful, it will begin a hundred and seventy miles West of the point formerly selected. You will, therefore, countermand at once any instructions previously given regarding the Wisconsin Pacific connection. The board also refuses to ratify the nomination of John Steele as vice-president of the road.—Nicholson.