The Pit Part 54

"I'm going over to the Illinois Trust now," said Jadwin, putting on his hat. "When your boys come in for their orders, tell them for to-day just to support the market. If there's much wheat offered they'd better buy it. Tell them not to let the market go below a dollar twenty. When I come back we'll make out those cables."

That day Jadwin carried out his programme so vehemently announced to his broker. Upon every piece of real estate that he owned he placed as heavy a mortgage as the property would stand. Even his old house on Michigan Avenue, even the "homestead" on North State Street were enc.u.mbered. The time was come, he felt, for the grand coup, the last huge strategical move, the concentration of every piece of heavy artillery. Never in all his mult.i.tude of operations on the Chicago Board of Trade had he failed. He knew he would not fail now; Luck, the golden G.o.ddess, still staid at his shoulder. He did more than mortgage his property; he floated a number of promissory notes. His credit, always unimpeachable, he taxed to its farthest stretch; from every source he gathered in the sinews of the war he was waging. No sum was too great to daunt him, none too small to be overlooked. Reserves, van and rear, battle line and skirmish outposts he summoned together to form one single vast column of attack.

It was on this same day while Jadwin, pressed for money, was leaving no stone unturned to secure ready cash, that he came across old Hargus in his usual place in Gretry's customers' room, reading a two days old newspaper. Of a sudden an idea occurred to Jadwin. He took the old man aside. "Hargus," he said, "do you want a good investment for your money, that money I turned over to you? I can give you a better rate than the bank, and pretty good security. Let me have about a hundred thousand at--oh, ten per cent."

"Hey--what?" asked the old fellow querulously. Jadwin repeated his request.

But Hargus cast a suspicious glance at him and drew away.

"I--I don't lend my money," he observed.

"Why--you old fool," exclaimed Jadwin. "Here, is it more interest you want? Why, we'll say fifteen per cent., if you like."

"I don't lend my money," exclaimed Hargus, shaking his head. "I ain't got any to lend," and with the words took himself off.

One source of help alone Jadwin left untried. Sorely tempted, he nevertheless kept himself from involving his wife's money in the hazard. Laura, in her own name, was possessed of a little fortune; sure as he was of winning, Jadwin none the less hesitated from seeking an auxiliary here. He felt it was a matter of pride. He could not bring himself to make use of a woman's succour.

But his entire personal fortune now swung in the balance. It was the last fight, the supreme attempt--the final consummate a.s.sault, and the thrill of a victory more brilliant, more conclusive, more decisive than any he had ever known, vibrated in Jadwin's breast, as he went to and fro in Jackson, Adams, and La Salle streets all through that day of the eleventh.

But he knew the danger--knew just how terrible was to be the grapple.

Once that same day a certain detail of business took him near to the entrance of the Floor. Though he did not so much as look inside the doors, he could not but hear the thunder of the Pit; and even in that moment of confidence, his great triumph only a few hours distant, Jadwin, for the instant, stood daunted. The roar was appalling, the whirlpool was again unchained, the maelstrom was again unleashed. And during the briefest of seconds he could fancy that the familiar bellow of its swirling, had taken on another pitch. Out of that hideous turmoil, he imagined, there issued a strange unwonted note; as it were, the first rasp and grind of a new avalanche just beginning to stir, a diapason more profound than any he had yet known, a hollow distant bourdon as of the slipping and sliding of some almighty and chaotic power.

It was the Wheat, the Wheat! It was on the move again. From the farms of Illinois and Iowa, from the ranches of Kansas and Nebraska, from all the reaches of the Middle West, the Wheat, like a tidal wave, was rising, rising. Almighty, blood-brother to the earthquake, coeval with the volcano and the whirlwind, that gigantic world-force, that colossal billow, Nourisher of the Nations, was swelling and advancing.

There in the Pit its first premonitory eddies already swirled and spun.

If even the first ripples of the tide smote terribly upon the heart, what was it to be when the ocean itself burst through, on its eternal way from west to east? For an instant came clear vision. What were these shouting, gesticulating men of the Board of Trade, these brokers, traders, and speculators? It was not these he fought, it was that fatal New Harvest; it was the Wheat; it was--as Gretry had said--the very Earth itself. What were those scattered hundreds of farmers of the Middle West, who because he had put the price so high had planted the grain as never before? What had they to do with it? Why the Wheat had grown itself; demand and supply, these were the two great laws the Wheat obeyed. Almost blasphemous in his effrontery, he had tampered with these laws, and had roused a t.i.tan. He had laid his puny human grasp upon Creation and the very earth herself, the great mother, feeling the touch of the cobweb that the human insect had spun, had stirred at last in her sleep and sent her omnipotence moving through the grooves of the world, to find and crush the disturber of her appointed courses.

The new harvest was coming in; the new harvest of wheat, huge beyond possibility of control; so vast that no money could buy it, so swift that no strategy could turn it. But Jadwin hurried away from the sound of the near roaring of the Pit. No, no. Luck was with him; he had mastered the current of the Pit many times before--he would master it again. The day pa.s.sed and the night, and at nine o'clock the following morning, he and Gretry once more met in the broker's office.

Gretry turned a pale face upon his princ.i.p.al.

"I've just received," he said, "the answers to our cables to Liverpool and Paris. I offered wheat at both places, as you know, cheaper than we've ever offered it there before."

"Yes--well?"

"Well," answered Gretry, looking gravely into Jadwin's eyes, "well--they won't take it."

On the morning of her birthday--the thirteenth of the month--when Laura descended to the breakfast room, she found Page already there. Though it was barely half-past seven, her sister was dressed for the street.

She wore a smart red hat, and as she stood by the French windows, looking out, she drew her gloves back and forth between her fingers, with a nervous, impatient gesture.

"Why," said Laura, as she sat down at her place, "why, Pagie, what is in the wind to-day?"

"Landry is coming," Page explained, facing about and glancing at the watch pinned to her waist. "He is going to take me down to see the Board of Trade--from the visitor's gallery, you know. He said this would probably be a great day. Did Mr. Jadwin come home last night?"

Laura shook her head, without speech. She did not choose to put into words the fact that for three days--with the exception of an hour or two, on the evening after that horrible day of her visit to the Cresslers' house--she had seen nothing of her husband.

"Landry says," continued Page, "that it is awful--down there, these days. He says that it is the greatest fight in the history of La Salle Street. Has Mr. Jadwin, said anything to you? Is he going to win?"

"I don't know," answered Laura, in a low voice; "I don't know anything about it, Page."

She was wondering if even Page had forgotten. When she had come into the room, her first glance had been towards her place at table. But there was nothing there, not even so much as an envelope; and no one had so much as wished her joy of the little anniversary. She had thought Page might have remembered, but her sister's next words showed that she had more on her mind than birthdays.

"Laura," she began, sitting down opposite to her, and unfolding her napkin, with laborious precision. "Laura--Landry and I--Well ... we're going to be married in the fall."

"Why, Pagie," cried Laura, "I'm just as glad as I can be for you. He's a fine, clean fellow, and I know he will make you a good husband."

Page drew a deep breath.

"Well," she said, "I'm glad you think so, too. Before you and Mr.

Jadwin were married, I wasn't sure about having him care for me, because at that time--well--" Page looked up with a queer little smile, "I guess you could have had him--if you had wanted to."

"Oh, that," cried Laura. "Why, Landry never really cared for me. It was all the silliest kind of flirtation. The moment he knew you better, I stood no chance at all."

"We're going to take an apartment on Michigan Avenue, near the Auditorium," said Page, "and keep house. We've talked it all over, and know just how much it will cost to live and keep one servant. I'm going to serve the loveliest little dinners; I've learned the kind of cooking he likes already. Oh, I guess there he is now," she cried, as they heard the front door close.

Landry came in, carrying a great bunch of cut flowers, and a box of candy. He was as spruce as though he were already the bridegroom, his cheeks pink, his blonde hair radiant. But he was thin and a little worn, a dull feverish glitter came and went in his eyes, and his nervousness, the strain and excitement which beset him were in his every gesture, in every word of his rapid speech.

"We'll have to hurry," he told Page. "I must be down there hours ahead of time this morning."

"How is Curtis?" demanded Laura. "Have you seen him lately? How is he getting on with--with his speculating?"

Landry made a sharp gesture of resignation.

"I don't know," he answered. "I guess n.o.body knows. We had a fearful day yesterday, but I think we controlled the situation at the end. We ran the price up and up and up till I thought it would never stop. If the Pit thought Mr. Jadwin was beaten, I guess they found out how they were mistaken. For a time there, we were just driving them. But then Mr. Gretry sent word to us in the Pit to sell, and we couldn't hold them. They came back at us like wolves; they beat the price down five cents, in as many minutes. We had to quit selling, and buy again. But then Mr. Jadwin went at them with a rush. Oh, it was grand! We steadied the price at a dollar and fifteen, stiffened it up to eighteen and a half, and then sent it up again, three cents at a time, till we'd hammered it back to a dollar and a quarter."

"But Curtis himself," inquired Laura, "is he all right, is he well?"

"I only saw him once," answered Landry. "He was in Mr. Gretry's office.

Yes, he looked all right. He's nervous, of course. But Mr. Gretry looks like the sick man. He looks all frazzled out."

"I guess, we'd better be going," said Page, getting up from the table.

"Have you had your breakfast, Landry? Won't you have some coffee?"

"Oh, I breakfasted hours ago," he answered. "But you are right. We had better be moving. If you are going to get a seat in the gallery, you must be there half an hour ahead of time, to say the least. Shall I take any word to your husband from you, Mrs. Jadwin?"

"Tell him that I wish him good luck," she answered, "and--yes, ask him, if he remembers what day of the month this is--or no, don't ask him that. Say nothing about it. Just tell him I send him my very best love, and that I wish him all the success in the world."

It was about nine o'clock, when Landry and Page reached the foot of La Salle Street. The morning was fine and cool. The sky over the Board of Trade sparkled with sunlight, and the air was full of fluttering wings of the mult.i.tude of pigeons that lived upon the leakage of grain around the Board of Trade building.

"Mr. Cressler used to feed them regularly," said Landry, as they paused on the street corner opposite the Board. "Poor--poor Mr. Cressler--the funeral is to-morrow, you know."

Page shut her eyes.

"Oh," she murmured, "think, think of Laura finding him there like that.

Oh, it would have killed me, it would have killed me."

"Somehow," observed Landry, a puzzled expression in his eyes, "somehow, by George! she don't seem to mind very much. You'd have thought a shock like that would have made her sick."