The associate in New York proposed to Bullion the purchase of a controlling interest in a railroad; and Bullion, believing that the depression had nearly reached its limit, and that affairs would soon take a turn, agreed that it was best now to change their policy, and to buy all the shares in this stock that should be offered while the price was low, and keep them as an investment. He felt sure that he with the New York capitalist had now money enough to "swing" all the shares in market, and they each agreed to purchase all that should be brought to the hammer in their respective cities. Following up his promise faithfully, Bullion bought all the stock of the railroad that came into State Street, and in this way rapidly exhausted his ready money. Then he raised loans upon his other property, and still kept the market clear. But he wondered that so many shares came to Boston for sale; for the railroad was in a Western State, and few of the original holders were New England men. Bullion now met the first check in his career. Kerbstone, whose appeals for help he had disregarded, and whose property had been wofully depreciated by the course of the "bears," of whom Bullion was chief, failed for a large sum. As he was treasurer of the Neversink Mills, the stockholders and creditors of that corporation made an immediate investigation of its accounts. Kerbstone was found to be a defaulter to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars; the property was gone,--undermined like a snow-bank in spring. The largest owner was Bullion. He was overreached by his own shrewdness; and the hitherto unlucky "bulls," who had had small cause to laugh, thought that it was "sport to see the engineer Hoist with his own petard,"-- better even than to have tossed him on their own horns. Bullion made some wry faces; but the loss, though great, was not ruinous. He was obliged, however, to take back the shares of the factory-stock on which he had obtained loans for his New York operations, and to substitute an equal amount of other securities,--thus cramping his resources at a time when he needed every dollar to carry out his vast plans.