"All right," said Mr. Rogers, "if you're sure of this we'll go ahead. Tell them we'll take a sixty-day option on 50,000 shares, no liability to us, at—well, we'll be liberal, say at 15, and when you mention the price impress upon them that I know it cost them but $2 to $4."
I returned at once and began negotiations, but, as is usually the case, the fact that "Standard Oil" was nibbling leaked before I had clinched the option, and before we had even begun to examine the property, prices had advanced until there was a profit of $500,000 for us in the transaction. To look over the Utah property Mr. Rogers sent his son-in-law, Broughton, and in a short time I got word to feed out the 50,000 shares on the market at the best prices obtainable, and to borrow it for delivery in such ways that the Clark-Ward-Untermyer contingent should suspect nothing about it. No information was given me as to the expert's report, and I was absolutely ignorant whether it was good, bad, or indifferent, though from the fact that we were to sell the stock I inferred that it was unfavorable. The public took the 50,000 shares at between 32 and 36, much as an elephant takes in water after a thirsty tramp across sandy deserts—the shares were just sucked in without a gulp or a gasp. I did not know until long afterward that the purchasers were the English holders who had contributed the greater part of the 50,000 shares to meet our option—in other words, were buying back from us their own stock at more than twice the price we were to pay them for it, and that their eagerness was due to confidential information that the expert's examination had disclosed such richness that the price would surely jump to over $100 when "Standard Oil" assumed the management. Just where they acquired this information or how it was put in their path was a matter I never found out. As I have previously demonstrated, "Standard Oil" has its own system of wires and underground passages and rumor bureaus. It works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform.
This section of the deal was soon wound up, and the transaction showed us a profit of $1,000,000. That is, we had sold 50,000 shares which we