In an instant, a hundred men who had been chatting with one another in the pit, and as many more, as if by magic, leaped out of hiding, and a howl went up. They gathered in knots around the poles, pushing, pulling, yelling like demons, waving their arms aloft with fingers open, closed, or separated--a deaf mute alphabet used by these delirious men to buy or sell; and as they screamed and screeched and pushed and swore in a mad scramble, fortunes melted away or were created. And on one side of that fiscal arena, tall, gaunt, with a fringe of gray hair about his poll, and watching with eyes as merciless as a lynx ready to spring, stood Simmons. On the other, as alert, but younger, with the easy _sang froid_ of one skilled in this battle of values, stood Page. Full well he knew what his enemy's tactics would be, and that when the crowd began to rally around the Rockhaven pole, he would creep up like a panther, and at the right moment overbid the highest. None were buyers, for none wanted Rockhaven at its present price, except frightened bears seeking to cover, and well Simmons knew it. And so did Page, with his four thousand shares, waiting for the bear panic sure to come. Rockhaven's turn now came. It opened at sixteen, then up to seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, without a halt; a breathless trio in the balcony attentively watched the dial where its price was recorded, or Page, who held their fortunes in his hand. And then came the panic; for it had reached twenty, and Simmons, like a spectre, advanced, bidding twenty-one for ten thousand shares! Then two bears, short as much each at five and six, lost their heads. Up, up it went by leaps of two, three, and five points, bid by these half-crazed speculators, while Page eyed Simmons. Two tigers of finance, cool, calculating, merciless! The jam about the pole grew worse. A screaming, pushing, mad mass of beings, insane with greed! Some on top, some under, and all cursing, yelling, a writhing monster, all heads and hands, the like of which can nowhere else be found. Thirty was bid, then thirty-two, four, six, eight! Then forty! And then Page, calculating to a nicety, leaped in! In an instant, almost, the price fell twenty points, for Simmons, quick to see his enemy's offer to sell, lost his nerve and offered blocks of ten and twenty thousand shares down, down at any price! And the scared bears, as quick as he to see the tide had turned, joined the downward bidding. But Page had sold! Winn and Jess were saved! The bubble had burst! Conscience, as in all great climaxes of human feeling, was a factor in the crash; for Simmons, knowing that he had once wronged and robbed Page, intuitively felt that a revenge was coming, and to save what he could out of the wrecked plot, joined the insane selling. For once in his life he played the coward. After the financial delirium was over, there was a scene between him and Weston, over which it were best to draw the veil.