In Wall Street, the most gigantic gambling Mecca the world knows, where millions change hands every hour of the five of howling delirium that constitute a stock-exchange day, the two parties, "bulls" and "bears," wage a financial war.

Each has its general, recognized leader as well as a dozen lesser ones, who organize pools and cliques, manipulate news, issue statements that are pure fiction, pay for items in the press that are fairy tales, gather their moneyed forces into aggregation for practical robbery of others, and bend all energies of brain, experience, and knowledge of conditions to one focal point, and that either to depress or enhance the value of securities. Each main army has its general method, controls its banks, pays enormous tolls to telegraph companies, fixes rates of interest at will, pays for and colors the daily utterances of its own newspapers, and buys truth and falsehood with equal readiness at so much per line.

This describes the two parties generally; yet the men who constitute them are daily changing, and out of a thousand who may be among the bears to-day, half might be found with the bulls a week hence. Some may be on both sides at once, pushing one stock up and another down, a kaleidoscopic jumble of half insane human beings, whose statements as to value, conditions, and their own intentions bear no relation to the truth and are not expected to do so. It is a contest of cunning, a war of falsehood, a battle of deception. And those who fall by the wayside excite no pity, receive no consideration, and if they rise not by their own exertion, they are kicked out of the way.

Professionally speaking, lawyers have been called legal liars, but compared to stock manipulators they are walking examples of truth and veracity. A lawyer may lie and can if necessary, but a stock operator lies all the time; from sheer force of habit. A lawyer might lie to judge, jury, or his own client, but there is some chance that he may tell the truth to a brother lawyer; while stock brokers will lie to each other on all occasions, and if necessary swear to it.

And this is business in Wall Street!

A few other great cities have their lesser Wall streets, and where Weston & Hill, like a deadly upas tree, flourished for a time, a mimic Wall Street existed. It had its clique of bulls and bears, its Market News, its leaders, large and small, its daily contest of lies and money power, and though Weston & Hill were not among its members, their broker, Simmons, was—an active and unscrupulous mouthpiece, ready to fleece all fellow-brokers, or the firm he acted for, if necessary. He had bought or sold Rockhaven stock, as its prime mover, Weston, directed; circulated lies galore for three months; and by the occult process of manipulation had slowly worked the price up from one to ten dollars per share, and had so colored his lies and so managed the deal—now selling a thousand shares quietly, then buying them back ostentatiously—that, as the phrase goes, "the street was kept guessing all the time."

Some believed it was a good investment; more felt sure it was a "wildcat," and that soon or late the bubble would burst and the stock go down to rise no more. Only Simmons and Weston knew what was to be the outcome, but neither was likely to tell. More than that, they knew how much stock was in actual circulation or held by the street, and beyond that, a close approximation of how great a short interest had accrued. Each day since Rockhaven had been quoted at all, Simmons had made entry of all recorded sales, and knowing how much had been issued and how much bought in by himself, endeavored to keep track of it. It was fallacious, for the same stock might be bought and sold a hundred times, and the long and short disparity remain the same. One thing he knew,—how much had actually been sold, and out of this (a matter of thirty thousand) fully twenty thousand, he believed, would never be heard of on the street.

But he reckoned without Winn Hardy.

Rockhaven had been jeered and sneered at by the bear party; its backers, Weston & Hill, were known to be sharpers; their broker, Simmons, bore the same reputation; prediction that it was a wildcat and they unloading it on to the street had been repeated a thousand times; the Market News items were considered unreliable, and on the strength of all this hotbed of lies the knowing ones had sold the stock all the way up. Some had covered it at a loss, and smarting from that had sold again at a higher price, firmly believing it must fall some day; and when poor duped Winn, unconscious of the situation, was steaming toward the battleground, a dozen growling bears were selling Rockhaven at every point advance. Only bears sold to bears, however; for those who held what was out owned it at a lower price, and so long as it kept up they parted with none. It had opened that morning at ten and one-half, by noon rose to twelve and one-quarter, and at the delivery hour of two was firm at fourteen. Simmons had bought a few hundred when it had dropped a half point, just to cheer up the game, and knowing those who sold had none to deliver. A few bulls who owned it at five and six started a story that a corner had been engineered, and predicted that it would go to thirty inside a week. And when the gong sounded that day, and the market closed with Rockhaven at fifteen and one-quarter bid and sixteen asked, a few of the fur-coated liars looked askance at one another and went out and drank liberally to keep their courage up.

And that night Weston and Simmons held another conference. It was a vital one; for before it closed some ten thousand shares of general securities Weston & Hill either owned or held in trust passed into Simmons's possession, and when the two conspirators separated, one was richer by nearly two hundred thousand dollars, based on the market price of these securities, and the other gloating over the prospective robbery of his hated partner.

But a halt came the next day, for Simmons bid sixteen for a block of Rockhaven, a few conservative bulls unloaded and the price dropped two points, while the bears took courage.