A hundred head of cattle were slaughtered daily at the new abattoir. At last the plant was efficient. The Marquis had a right to congratulate himself. But unexpectedly a fresh obstacle to success obtruded itself. The experts had been wrong; the beef proved of poor quality. The branch houses disposed of it with difficulty, and the retail dealers in Chicago refused to buy. Although dressed beef was produced there in enormous quantities for Eastern markets, the local consumer had a prejudice against cold-storage meat. He did not like grass-fed beef, moreover. It was as good or better than corn-fed beef, but he was not accustomed to it, and would not change his habits even at a saving. It was a staggering blow, but the Marquis was a fighting man and he took it without wincing. Packard, discussing the situation with him one day, pointed out to him that the cattle could not possibly be stall-fed before they were slaughtered as no cattle feed was raised short of the corn country, hundreds of miles to the south. The Marquis was not noticeably perturbed by this recital of an obvious fact. "I am arranging to buy up the hop crop of the Pacific coast," he answered calmly. "This I will sell to the Milwaukee and St. Louis brewers on an agreement that they shall return to me all the resultant malt after their beer is made. This I will bring to Medora in tank cars. It is the most concentrated and fattening food to be bought. I will cover the town site south of the track with individual feeding-pens; thousands of them. Not only can I hold fat cattle as long as I wish, but I will feed cattle all the year round and always have enough to keep the abattoir running." There was something gorgeous in the Marquis's inability to know when he was beaten. His power of self-hypnotism was in fact, amazing, and the persistence with which he pursued new bubbles, in his efforts to escape from the devils which the old ones had hatched as they burst, had its attractive side. "The Medora Stage and Forwarding Company," the Dickinson _Press_ announced on May 16th, "is a total wreck." It was; and shortly after, Van Driesche, most admirable of valets and now the Marquis's private secretary, went with "Johnny" Goodall, foreman of the Marquis's ranch, to Deadwood to salvage what they could from the rocks. But two weeks later the Marquis had a new dream. The _Press_ announced it; "The Marquis de Mores believes he has discovered kaoline, a clay from which the finest pottery is made, near the town of Medora." The inference is clear. If Medora could not rival Chicago, it might easily rival Sevres or Copenhagen.