_The honest promoter aims at both the thinker who thinks he knows but doesn't, and the thinker who really does know. He is compelled to appeal to both classes because the membership of the first outnumbers that of the second in the proportion of about 1,000 to 1._ _In fine, for every dollar of "wise" money which is thrown into the vortex of speculation_, $1,000 is "unwise," or considered so. The initial Stray Dog and Indian Camp promotion campaign was only half successful at the outset. About 650,000 shares of Stray Dog and 350,000 shares of Indian Camp had been disposed of when the Manhattan boom began to lose its intensity. Promotions had been made a little too rapidly for public digestion. There were more miners at work than ever in the Manhattan camp, but the demand for securities was not keeping pace with the supply. Manhattan's initial boom appeared to be flattening out just as Goldfield's first boom had. We met with a setback from another direction. Henry McCornick's banking connections in Salt Lake objected to the use of his name as president of the Stray Dog. At the very height of our advertising campaign Mr. McCornick resigned. We elected our engineer, "Jack" Campbell, president, but damage was done. YES, "BUSINESS IS BUSINESS" The offices of the trust company were furnished on an elaborate scale, resembling the interior of a banking institution of a large city. The offices became the headquarters of Eastern mining-stock brokers whenever they arrived in camp. One morning J. C. Weir, a New York mining-stock broker, whose firm held an option from the trust company on 100,000 shares of Stray Dog stock, was ensconced in one of the two luxuriously furnished rooms used as executive offices. Mr. Weir's firm was one of our selling agents in New York. He was the dean of mining-stock brokers in New York City. In those early days the telephone service of Goldfield was not yet perfected, and it was only necessary for a person, in order to overhear any talk over the telephone in our offices, to lift the receiver from the nearest hook and listen. It was reported to me that Mr. Weir had been availing himself of this method of learning things at first hand. "Say, Rice," said Mr. Sullivan one morning, "Weir hears your messages every time you are called on the 'phone. He takes advantage of you. I wish you would let me fix him." "All right; what do you want to do?" I answered. "Say," said Mr. Sullivan, "Campbell, our engineer, is in Manhattan. I'll call him up from the public station and tell him to 'phone you some red-hot news about mine developments on Stray Dog, and I'll see to it that Weir is in his office at the time you get the message. If Weir don't steal the news and grab a big block of Stray Dog on the strength of it, I'm a poor guesser." All of our options to brokers were to expire on the 15th of March and this was the 13th.