"Poor Jack has caught the plague. He has invested in land. Thinks it will make him rich. He's in poor health too--kidney trouble--and Bim has a baby with all the rest--a beautiful boy. I went up-stairs and saw him asleep in his cradle. Looks like her. Hair as yellow as gold, light complexion, blue eyes, handsome as a picture." That night in the office of the City Hotel they found Mr. Lionel Davis in the midst of a group of excited speculators. In some way he had got across the prairies and was selling his land and accepting every offer on the plea that he was going into the grain business in St. Louis and had to leave Chicago next day. Samson and Harry watched him while he exercised the arts of the auctioneer in cleaning his slate. Diamonds and gold watches were taken and many thousands of dollars in bank bills and coin came into his hands. He choked the market with bargains. The buyers began to back off. They were like hungry dogs laboring with a difficult problem of mastication. Mr. Davis closed his carpet bag and left. "It was a kind of horse stealin'," said Samson as they were going to bed. "He got news down there on the main road by pony express on its way to St. Louis. I'll bet there's been a panic in the East. He's awake and the others are still dreamin'." CHAPTER XIX WHEREIN IS ONE OF THE MANY PRIVATE PANICS WHICH FOLLOWED THE BURSTING OF THE BUBBLE OF SPECULATION. Samson and Harry saw the bursting of the great bubble of '37. Late that night Disaster, loathsome and thousand legged, crept into the little city. It came on a steamer from the East and hastened from home to home, from tavern to tavern. It bit as it traveled. Great banks had suspended payment; New York had suffered a panic; many large business enterprises in the East had failed; certain agents for the bonds of Illinois had absconded with the state's money; in the big cities there had been an ominous closing of doors and turning of locks; a great army of men were out of employment. Those of sound judgment in Chicago knew that all the grand schemes of the statesmen and speculators of Illinois were as the visions of an ended dream. The local banks did not open their doors next day. The little city was in a frenzy of excitement. The streets were filled with a shouting, half crazed throng. New fortunes had shrunk to nothing and less than nothing in a night. Lots in the city were offered for a tithe of what their market value had been. Davis had known that the storm would arrive with the first steamer and in the slang of business had put on a life-preserver. Samson knew that the time to buy was when every one wanted to sell. He wore a belt with some two thousand dollars of gold coin tucked away in its pockets. He bought two corner lots for himself in the city and two acres for Mrs. Lukins on the prairie half a mile from town. They got their deeds and went to the Kelsos to bid them good-by. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Samson asked.