There had been almost a gold famine for weeks, the drain from abroad had been so great, and this fact had more than anything else encouraged the bear movement which had been undertaken. Within a week, however, nearly fifteen millions of bullion had been added to the stock in the hands of New York holders. General attention had not yet been attracted to the activity at the Assay Office, but the big operators in the market on both sides knew about it and it puzzled them exceedingly. Within three or four days after the sudden check came to the bear campaign, the managers of the syndicate were using their utmost endeavors to discover the source and extent of this unexpected influx of gold. They had good reason to be alarmed as well as bewildered. They had not undertaken the campaign without the most exhaustive study of the whole monetary situation. They knew almost to a dollar the free gold resources of the country. They had estimated shrewdly the timidity or distrust which characterized the general financial public opinion. They possessed sufficient capital and skill to make their scheme an almost certain success, if the situation was really what their inquiries indicated it to be. Whence, then, this unexpected obstacle? They made use of every source of information which ingenuity could suggest, and then on the last day of the year they met in the Broad Street Office of the chief member of the bear pool to decide on their future policy. It had been another disastrous day for them in the market. Prices had recovered almost to the point where they had begun operations and yet they were “short” many thousand shares. Their position was critical and they knew it. So it was not a sanguine group which gathered about a large table in the private office of the big operator. They got down to business at once. First they listened to a statement of the business done by the syndicate to date. By this it appeared that if all contracts should be closed at that day’s closing quotations, the net result would be a loss of just $2,135,225. This was serious, but it was not all. The pool was still “short,” that is, it had contracted to deliver 195,200 shares of stock. To attempt to buy in this immense block of stock in the existing state of the market would send prices kiting higher than ever. It might more than double the losses already incurred. This meant little less than ruin for more than one of the half-dozen men around the green-baize table. But they were men of nerve, every one. They were accustomed to face emergencies boldly, and they proceeded to discuss the situation with calmness and cool logic. The grizzle-headed, keen-eyed, energetic man at the head of the table, a millionaire ten times over, and holding nearly fifty per cent interest in the pool, first expressed himself in the terse, jerky sentences characteristic of him: