About ten days before the raid on National Woolens there had drifted in to Dumont through one of his many subterranean sources of information a rumor that the Fanning-Smiths had stealthily reduced their holdings of Great Lakes to twenty-one thousand shares and that the property was not so good as it had once been. He never permitted any Wall Street development to pass unexplained--he thought it simple prudence for a man with the care of a great financial and commercial enterprise to look into every dark corner of the Street and see what was hatching there. Accordingly, he sent an inquiry back along his secret avenue. Soon he learned that Great Lakes was sound, but the Fanning-Smiths had gone rotten; that they were gambling in the stock of the road they controlled and were supposed in large part to own; that they were secretly selling its stock "short"--that is, were betting it would go down--when there was nothing in the condition of the property to justify a fall. He reflected on this situation and reached these conclusions: "James Fanning-Smith purposes to pass the autumn dividend, which will cause the stock to drop. Then he will take his profits from the shares he has sold short and will buy back control at the low price. He is a fool and a knave. Only an imbecile would thus trifle with an established property. A chance for some one to make a fortune and win a railroad by smashing the Fanning-Smiths." Having recorded in his indelible memory these facts and conclusions as to James Fanning-Smith's plunge from business into gambling, Dumont returned to his own exacting affairs. He had himself begun the race for multi-millions as a gambler and had only recently become ALMOST altogether a business man. But he thought there was a radical difference between his case and Fanning-Smith's. To use courageous gambling as means to a foothold in business--he regarded that as wise audacity. To use a firm-established foothold in business as a means to gambling--he regarded that as the acme of reckless folly. Besides, when he marked the cards or loaded the dice for a great Wall Street game of "high finance," he did it with skill and intelligence; and Fanning-Smith had neither.