The market for all listed Goldfield stocks was made to boil and sizzle day in and day out until Jumbo and Red Top had been ballooned from $2 to $5 per share, Laguna from 40 cents to $2, Goldfield Mining from 50 cents to $2, and Mohawk from $5 to $20. Within three weeks the advance in market price of the issued capitalization of this quintet alone represented the difference between $8,000,000 and $26,500,000. A few days before top prices were reached, it was officially announced that the merger of Mohawk, Red Top, Jumbo, Goldfield Mining and Laguna into the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company had been made on the basis of $20 for each outstanding share of Mohawk, $5 for Red Top, $5 for Jumbo, $2 for Goldfield Mining, and $2 for Laguna. It was also given out that the promoters, Wingfield and Nixon, had allotted themselves $2,500,000 in stock of the merged companies as a promoters' fee. Right on top of this came an announcement that the Combination mine had been turned into the merger for $4,000,000 in cash and stock, and it was learned that go-betweens had made a profit of $1,000,000 on the deal by securing an option on the property for $3,000,000. In short, a merger was put through of properties and stocks, the issued capitalization of which was selling in already inflated markets on the day the merger was conceived for $11,000,000, at a valuation of $33,000,000, and in addition the promoters received a $2,500,000 bonus. Had the properties been merged on the basis of their selling prices three weeks prior, the equivalent value of the 3,500,000 shares of merger stock would have been a fraction above $3. As it stood, under the ballooning process, the market value was $10, which was the par. At the time of the merger these were the conditions that ruled at the mines: The Mohawk, appraised at $20,000,000, had produced under lease in the neighborhood of $8,000,000, of which less than $2,000,000 had found its way into the treasury of the Mohawk Mining Company, the balance going to the leasers. The leasers had "high-graded" the property to a fare-you-well, and less than $1,000,000 worth of high-grade remained in sight, although it was conceded on every side that the leasers had not attempted, nor were they able during the period of their leasehold, to block out systematically and put into sight all of the ore in the mine. Large, but indefinite, prospective value therefore attached to Mohawk in addition to the tonnage in sight. The Laguna, for which $2,000,000 had been paid in stock, did not have a pound of ore in sight, and had cost Wingfield and Nixon less than $100,000. Goldfield Mining, scene of a sensational production during the early days of the camp, appraised at $2,000,000 more, had fizzled out as a producer. Jumbo, taken in for $5,000,000, for a year previous had produced little or no ore, most of the time being exhausted by the management in sinking a deep shaft, and it had less than $500,000 in sight.