"Well, that's about all then, I guess," said Gretry at last, as he pushed back his chair and rose from the table.
He and Jadwin were in a room on the third floor of the Grand Pacific Hotel, facing Jackson Street.It was three o'clock in the morning.Both men were in their shirt-sleeves; the table at which they had been sitting was scattered over with papers, telegraph blanks, and at Jadwin's elbow stood a lacquer tray filled with the stumps of cigars and burnt matches, together with one of the hotel pitchers of ice water.
"Yes," assented Jadwin, absently, running through a sheaf of telegrams, "that's all we can do--until we see what kind of a game Crookes means to play.I'll be at your office by eight.""Well," said the broker, getting into his coat, "Iguess I'll go to my room and try to get a little sleep.
I wish I could see how we'll be to-morrow night at this time."Jadwin made a sharp movement of impatience.
"Damnation, Sam, aren't you ever going to let up croaking? If you're afraid of this thing, get out of it.Haven't I got enough to bother me?""Oh, say! Say, hold on, hold on, old man,"remonstrated the broker, in an injured voice."You're terrible touchy sometimes, J., of late.I was only trying to look ahead a little.Don't think I want to back out.You ought to know me by this time, J.""There, there, I'm sorry, Sam," Jadwin hastened to answer, getting up and shaking the other by the shoulder."I _am_ touchy these days.There's so many things to think of, and all at the same time.I do get nervous.I never slept one little wink last night--and you know the night before I didn't turn in till two in the morning.""Lord, you go swearing and damning 'round here like a pirate sometimes, J.," Gretry went on."I haven't heard you cuss before in twenty years.Look out, now, that I don't tell on you to your Sunday-school superintendents.""I guess they'd cuss, too," observed Jadwin, "if they were long forty million wheat, and had to know just where every hatful of it was every second of the time.
It was all very well for us to whoop about swinging a corner that afternoon in your office.But the real thing--well, you don't have any trouble keeping awake.
Do you suppose we can keep the fact of our corner dark much longer?""I fancy not," answered the broker, putting on his hat and thrusting his papers into his breast pocket."If we bust Crookes, it'll come out--and it won't matter then.I think we've got all the shorts there are.""I'm laying particularly for Dave Scannel," remarked Jadwin."I hope he's in up to his neck, and if he is, by the Great Horn Spoon, I'll bankrupt him, or my name is not Jadwin! I'll wring him bone-dry.If I once get a twist of that rat, I won't leave him hide nor hair to cover the wart he calls his heart.""Why, what all has Scannel ever done to you?" demanded the other, amazed.
"Nothing, but I found out the other day that old Hargus--poor old, broken-backed, half-starved Hargus--Ifound out that it was Scannel that ruined him.Hargus and he had a big deal on, you know--oh, ages ago--and Scannel sold out on him.Great God, it was the dirtiest, damnedest treachery I ever heard of! Scannel made his pile, and what's Hargus now? Why, he's a scarecrow.And he has a little niece that he supports, heaven only knows how.I've seen her, and she's pretty as a picture.Well, that's all right; I'm going to carry fifty thousand wheat for Hargus, and I've got another scheme for him, too.By God, the poor old boy won't go hungry again if I know it! But if I lay my hands on Scannel--if we catch him in the corner--holy, suffering Moses, but I'll make him squeal!"Gretry nodded, to say he understood and approved.
"I guess you've got him," he remarked."Well, I must get to bed.Good night, J.""Good night, Sam.See you in the morning."And before the door of the room was closed, Jadwin was back at the table again.Once more, painfully, toilfully, he went over his plans, retesting, altering, recombining, his hands full of lists, of despatches, and of endless columns of memoranda.Occasionally he murmured fragments of sentences to himself."H'm...Imust look out for that....They can't touch us there....The annex of that Nickel Plate elevator will hold--let's see...half a million....If I buy the grain within five days after arrival I've got to pay storage, which is, let's see--three-quarters of a cent times eighty thousand...."An hour passed.At length Jadwin pushed back from the table, drank a glass of ice water, and rose, stretching.
"Lord, I must get some sleep," he muttered.
He threw off his clothes and went to bed, but even as he composed himself to sleep, the noises of the street in the awakening city invaded the room through the chink of the window he had left open.The noises were vague.They blended easily into a far-off murmur; they came nearer; they developed into a cadence:
"Wheat-wheat-wheat, wheat-wheat-wheat."
Jadwin roused up.He had just been dropping off to sleep.He rose and shut the window, and again threw himself down.He was weary to death; not a nerve of his body that did not droop and flag.His eyes closed slowly.Then, all at once, his whole body twitched sharply in a sudden spasm, a simultaneous recoil of every muscle.His heart began to beat rapidly, his breath failed him.Broad awake, he sat up in bed.
"H'm!" he muttered."That was a start--must have been dreaming, surely."Then he paused, frowning, his eyes narrowing; he looked to and fro about the room, lit by the subdued glow that came in through the transom from a globe in the hall outside.Slowly his hand went to his forehead.
With almost the abruptness of a blow, that strange, indescribable sensation had returned to his head.It was as though he were struggling with a fog in the interior of his brain; or again it was a numbness, a weight, or sometimes it had more of the feeling of a heavy, tight-drawn band across his temples.
"Smoking too much, I guess," murmured Jadwin.But he knew this was not the reason, and as he spoke, there smote across his face the first indefinite sensation of an unnamed fear.
