Boom! Boom! Boom! went Nipissing. By the time the price crossed $20 the gamblers and speculators of two continents were on fire with excitement. Presently it became noised about that the Guggenheim family had taken an option on 400,000 shares of Nipissing stock at $25 a share, making the investment $10,000,000, and putting a valuation of $32,000,000 on the property. Furthermore, it was announced that the deal had been made on the report and advice of John Hays Hammond, the international mining engineer, crony of Cecil Rhodes and famed as the head of the profession. As a part and parcel of the remarkable story, it was authoritatively stated that the Guggenheims had paid $2,500,000 cash for the option. W. B. Thompson was said to have negotiated the transaction. Confirmation of the deal set the gamblers crazy. There could be no risk in following such leadership as the Guggenheims', endorsed by the eminent Hammond. The market boiled up to $30 and then majestically boomed to $33.25. Transactions in this single issue totaled hundreds of thousands of shares a day. Waiters, bar-keepers, tailors, seamstresses and tenderloin beauties competed with bankers, merchants, professionals on the regular exchanges, and even ministers of the Gospel, for the privilege of buying Nipissing shares on a valuation of more than $40,000,000 for the mine. On the way up the original bunch of insiders floated out of their holdings. Most of them had cashed in under $20. Some of them stayed out; others went back, and, like the moth, got burned. W. B. Thompson, it is said, parted with the bulk of his 250,000 to 300,000 shares at from $24.50 up, cleaning up for personal account between $4,500,000 and $5,000,000, according to the estimates of close friends then in his confidence. Never was there a cleaner case of "finding" money for Mr. Thompson. The manipulative campaign, of which he was made manager, was a giant success. The only ability or skill needed, after the Guggenheim deal was made--brilliant deal from a market standpoint!--was the sense to hold on to his optioned stock until his associates, the Guggenheim following, and the public made a rich, ripe and juicy market for it. Mr. Thompson subsequently participated in Cumberland-Ely, El Reyo, Inspiration, La Rose, Utah Copper, Mason Valley, and other mining promotions, and is now rated at $10,000,000 to $12,000,000. He is generally prominent at the nutritious or selling end when a good market exists and is now head of a New York Stock Exchange brokerage and mining promotion firm which publishes its own newspaper. But what happened to Nipissing? Plenty, and then some, happened. As noted, the stock mounted by flying leaps to $33.25, stayed well above $30 for quite a while, and began slowly to recede. Complacent in the consciousness that they had the biggest silver mine in the world, the Guggenheims allowed all of their friends to share in their good fortune.