The newspapers tried it too, and some of the solutions which they offered were amusing and absurd. One enterprising sheet asserted that it had discovered a plot by the Chinese government to revenge itself for the anti-Chinese legislation during the last two or three years in the United States by getting control of the principal railroads and telegraphs of the country, with a view to dictating a change of policy or possibly in preparation for a sudden invasion. Another was confident that the Standard Oil millionaires had undertaken a vast scheme in finance. The story which obtained greatest credence, perhaps, was one which credited a great English syndicate having the Bank of England at its back with a plan for investing some of the millions which had been saved from Argentina and South Africa in really sound “Americans.” There were many speculations about the strength and scope of this syndicate. It was explained that all the gold which made its appearance in the Assay Office was shipped secretly from England, and that the flow of gold from America to London was permitted to take place merely as a blind. It had come to be pretty generally understood that the enormous gold deposits were being made at the Assay Office by Strong & Co. Of course they were only agents. The newspapers tried direct inquiry at first, and they obtained only polite refusals of information. Indirect attempts to learn the secret were as futile. One enterprising journal set a watch for several days upon the firm’s office. At last they made a discovery. A new covered wagon, heavily built and drawn by a pair of powerful horses, drove up to Strong & Co.’s office just before ten o’clock one morning. The team was quickly backed up to the door and a pair of skids was run out. Two men who were with the driver went inside the office. A few moments later they reappeared, one of them pushing an ordinary railway baggage truck upon which was a small wooden box, apparently very heavy. This was deposited at the bottom of the skid. Then both men, big muscular fellows, pushed and tugged it up the incline into the wagon. Twenty such boxes were brought out and loaded in the same way. Then the three men jumped on the team and drove off, with a knee-nosed reporter in full chase. The team went by a rather circuitous route to the Assay Office, where the boxes were unloaded and taken inside. The wagon returned to Strong & Co.’s, received another load, and delivered it also at the Assay Office.