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orders exactly. He could pick up a fourth and a fifth man if necessary. He would give them
orders to sell--everything--ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty points off, if necessary, in order to trap the
unwary, depress the market, frighten the fearsome who would think he was too daring; and then
he would buy, buy, buy, below these figures as much as possible, in order to cover his sales
and reap a profit.
His instinct told him how widespread and enduring this panic would be. The Northern Pacific
was a hundred-million-dollar venture. It involved the savings of hundreds of thousands of
people--small bankers, tradesmen, preachers, lawyers, doctors, widows, institutions all over the
land, and all resting on the faith and security of Jay Cooke. Once, not unlike the Chicago fire
map, Cowperwood had seen a grand prospectus and map of the location of the Northern Pacific
land-grant which Cooke had controlled, showing a vast stretch or belt of territory extending from
Duluth--"The Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," as Proctor Knott, speaking in the House of
Representatives, had sarcastically called it--through the Rockies and the headwaters of the
Missouri to the Pacific Ocean. He had seen how Cooke had ostensibly managed to get control
of this government grant, containing millions upon millions of acres and extending fourteen
hundred miles in length; but it was only a vision of empire. There might be silver and gold and
copper mines there. The land was usable--would some day be usable. But what of it now? It
would do to fire the imaginations of fools with--nothing more. It was inaccessible, and would
remain so for years to come. No doubt thousands had subscribed to build this road; but, too,
thousands would now fail if it had failed. Now the crash had come. The grief and the rage of the
public would be intense. For days and days and weeks and months, normal confidence and
courage would be gone. This was his hour. This was his great moment. Like a wolf prowling
under glittering, bitter stars in the night, he was looking down into the humble folds of simple
men and seeing what their ignorance and their unsophistication would cost them.
He hurried back to the exchange, the very same room in which only two years before he had
fought his losing fight, and, finding that his partner and his brother had not yet come, began to
sell everything in sight. Pandemonium had broken loose. Boys and men were fairly tearing in
from all sections with orders from panic-struck brokers to sell, sell, sell, and later with orders to
buy; the various trading-posts were reeling, swirling masses of brokers and their agents.
Outside in the street in front of Jay Cooke & Co., Clark & Co., the Girard National Bank, and
other institutions, immense crowds were beginning to form. They were hurrying here to learn the
trouble, to withdraw their deposits, to protect their interests generally. A policeman arrested a
boy for calling out the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., but nevertheless the news of the great
disaster was spreading like wild-fire.
Among these panic-struck men Cowperwood was perfectly calm, deadly cold, the same
Cowperwood who had pegged solemnly at his ten chairs each day in prison, who had baited his
traps for rats, and worked in the little garden allotted him in utter silence and loneliness. Now he
was vigorous and energetic. He had been just sufficiently about this exchange floor once more
to have made his personality impressive and distinguished. He forced his way into the center of
swirling crowds of men already shouting themselves hoarse, offering whatever was being
offered in quantities which were astonishing, and at prices which allured the few who were
anxious to make money out of the tumbling prices to buy. New York Central had been standing
at 104 7/8 when the failure was announced; Rhode Island at 108 7/8; Western Union at 92 1/2;
Wabash at 70 1/4; Panama at 117 3/8; Central Pacific at 99 5/8; St. Paul at 51; Hannibal & St.
Joseph at 48; Northwestern at 63; Union Pacific at 26 3/4; Ohio and Mississippi at 38 3/4.
Cowperwood's house had scarcely any of the stocks on hand. They were not carrying them for
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