ABSTRACT
Getting wind of the business, Cornelius Vanderbilt managed to have Jay Gould arrested, though the prisoner kept out of jail and, in the mild custody of a friendly deputy, continued his machinations from a hotel room. It was as obvious to Commodore Vanderbilt as it was to less shrewd men that Drew was not interested in the Erie Railroad as a transportation system. It was a piece of property to be manipulated for his own profit. From the day he became a heavy stockholder, he had by various means caused flurries, then depressions in its shares, taking his gains with each fluctuation. Both Gould and Fisk were now acting as his agents, and old Uncle Dan'l was about to learn exactly how smart his young men were. The old drover's hat, the rusty antique clothes, the umbrella used as a cane, and the nasal drawl of a bumpkin, these were valuable props and he knew it.
