“Run and get Wingate and Joe,” he said.  “There’s something big on this afternoon.  Jay Cooke has failed.”

Edward waited for no other word, but hurried off as directed.

Cowperwood reached Cooke & Co. among the earliest.  To his utter astonishment, the solid brown-oak doors, with which he was familiar, were shut, and a notice posted on them, which he quickly read, ran: 

     September 18, 1873. 
     To the Public—­

We regret to be obliged to announce that, owing to unexpected demands on us, our firm has been obliged to suspend payment.  In a few days we will be able to present a statement to our creditors.  Until which time we must ask their patient consideration.  We believe our assets to be largely in excess of our liabilities.

     Jay Cooke & Co.

A magnificent gleam of triumph sprang into Cowperwood’s eye.  In company with many others he turned and ran back toward the exchange, while a reporter, who had come for information knocked at the massive doors of the banking house, and was told by a porter, who peered out of a diamond-shaped aperture, that Jay Cooke had gone home for the day and was not to be seen.

“Now,” thought Cowperwood, to whom this panic spelled opportunity, not ruin, “I’ll get my innings.  I’ll go short of this—­of everything.”

Before, when the panic following the Chicago fire had occurred, he had been long—­had been compelled to stay long of many things in order to protect himself.  To-day he had nothing to speak of—­perhaps a paltry seventy-five thousand dollars which he had managed to scrape together.  Thank God! he had only the reputation of Wingate’s old house to lose, if he lost, which was nothing.  With it as a trading agency behind him—­with it as an excuse for his presence, his right to buy and sell—­he had everything to gain.  Where many men were thinking of ruin, he was thinking of success.  He would have Wingate and his two brothers under him to execute his orders exactly.  He could pick up a fourth and a fifth man if necessary.  He would give them orders to sell—­everything—­ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty points off, if necessary, in order to trap the unwary, depress the market, frighten the fearsome who would think he was too daring; and then he would buy, buy, buy, below these figures as much as possible, in order to cover his sales and reap a profit.

His instinct told him how widespread and enduring this panic would be.  The Northern Pacific was a hundred-million-dollar venture.  It involved the savings of hundreds of thousands of people—­small bankers, tradesmen, preachers, lawyers, doctors, widows, institutions all over the land, and all resting on the faith and security of Jay Cooke.  Once, not unlike the Chicago fire map, Cowperwood had seen a grand prospectus and map of the location of the Northern Pacific land-grant which Cooke had controlled, showing a vast stretch or belt of territory extending from