"The exporters have all the ships chartered and expect Ball & Holstein to furnish the cattle for next week's shipments. I believe that old Ball will kick out of the combine and tell the other exporters in the trust that they may go to the devil for their cattle. You know what kind of a panic this will cause. The space on the boats has been chartered and paid for, and it would be a great loss to let it stand empty. Nor could they ship the common stock on the market. All these men have foreign contracts, made in advance and calling for certain heavy grades of stock, and they are under contract to furnish a certain specified number of bullocks each week. They formed the combine in order to avoid difficulties, and have depended on a pool of all the stock contracted for by the several firms, out of which they could fill their boats when the supply should happen to be short or the market temporarily high. The foreign market is rising, and the old man is dead sure to hold on to the good thing in his clutches. I was so firmly convinced that the combine was going to pieces that I at once jumped on the first train west and hurried here to see you. The exporters must fill their contracts no matter what happens. If old Ball kicks over, as he is sure to do, the market will sail against the sky. We will have them on the hip if we can get the export cattle into New York, but we have no time to lose. These cattle must be bought to-day, and carred here to-morrow. Do you understand me?" "Yes," said the cattle-shipper, striking his clenched right hand into the palm of his left. "It is going to be quick work, but we can do it or my name is not Woodford." "We must have at least twelve carloads of big export cattle," continued Harris. "Not one to weigh less than sixteen hundred pounds. They must be good. Now, where can you get them quickest?" "Well," answered the shipper, thoughtfully, "old Ralph Izzard has the best drove, but he wants five cents for them, and that is steep, too steep." "No," said Harris, "that is all right if they are good. We have no time to run over the country to hunt them up. If these are the right kind we will not stand on his price." "You can stake your soul on them being the right kind, Billy," answered the cattle-shipper enthusiastically. "Izzard picked them out of a drove of at least a thousand last fall, and he has looked after the brutes and pampered them like pet cats. They will go over sixteen hundred, every one of them, and they are as fat as hogs and as broad on the backs as a bed. I could slip out to his place and buy them to-night and have them here in time to car to-morrow, if you think we can give the old man his price." "They will bring six and a half in New York, and go like hot cakes," said Harris, "but you will have to get out of this quick or you may run into a crowd of buyers from Baltimore."