He had seen the two ends of a great wheat operation--a battle between
Bear and Bull. The stories (subsequently published in the city's press)
of Truslow's countermove in selling Hornung his own wheat, supplied the
unseen section. The farmer--he who raised the wheat--was ruined upon one
hand; the working-man--he who consumed it--was ruined upon the other.
But between the two, the great operators, who never saw the wheat they
traded in, bought and sold the world's food, gambled in the nourishment
of entire nations, practised their tricks, their chicanery and oblique
shifty "deals," were reconciled in their differences, and went on
through their appointed way, jovial, contented, enthroned, and
unassailable.




THE WIFE OF CHINO


I. CHINO'S WIFE

On the back porch of the "office," young Lockwood--his boots, stained
with the mud of the mines and with candle-drippings, on the rail--sat
smoking his pipe and looking off down the canon.

It was early in the evening. Lockwood, because he had heard the laughter
and horseplay of the men of the night shift as they went down the canon
from the bunk-house to the tunnel-mouth, knew that it was a little after
seven. It would not be necessary to go indoors and begin work on the
columns of figures of his pay-roll for another hour yet. He knocked the