The effect of the panic paralyzed the city.  Men whose “red dog money” was in every one’s pocket closed their shops and ran away.  The wild adventurers cleared out.  Their character may be judged by the words of one of them reported by the editor of The Democrat.

“I failed for a hundred thousand dollars and could have failed for a million if Jackson had kept his hands off.”

Hard times hung like a cloud over the city.  Its population suffered some diminishment in the next two years in spite of its position on the main highway of trade.  Dream cities, canals and railroads built without hands became a part of the poetry of American commerce.  Indeed they had come of the prophetic vision and were therefore entitled to respect in spite of the fact that they had been smirched and polluted by speculators.

That autumn men and women who had come to Mrs. Kinzie’s party in jewels and in purple and fine linen had left or turned their hands to hard labor.  The Kelsos suffered real distress, the schools being closed and the head of the house having taken to his bed with illness.  Bim went to work as a seamstress and with the help of Mrs. Kinzie and Mrs. Hubbard was able to keep the family from want.  The nursing and the care of the baby soon broke the health of Mrs. Kelso, never a strong woman.  Bim came home from her work one evening and found her mother ill.

“Cheer up, my daughter,” said Jack.  “An old friend of ours has returned to the city.  He is a rich man—­an oasis in the desert of poverty.  He has loaned me a hundred dollars in good coin.”

“Who has done this?” Bim asked.

“Mr. Lionel Davis.  He has just come from New Orleans.  He is a successful speculator in grain.”

“We must not take his money,” said Bim.

“I had a long talk with him,” Kelso went on.  “He has explained that unfortunate incident of the horse.  It was a bit of offhand folly born of an anxious moment.”

“But the man wants to marry me.”

“He said nothing of such a purpose.”

“He will be in no hurry about that,” said Bim.  “He is a shrewd operator.  Every one hates him.  They say that he knew what was coming when he sold out.”

That evening Bim wrote a long letter to Samson Traylor telling of the evil days which had come to them.  This letter, now in the possession of a great grandson of Samson and Sarah Traylor, had a singular history.  It reached the man to whom it was addressed in the summer of 1844.  It was found with many others that summer in Tazewell County under a barn which its owner was removing.  It brought to mind the robbery of the stage from Chicago, south of the sycamore woods, in the autumn of ’37, by a man who had ridden with the driver from Chicago and who, it was thought, had been in collusion with him.  A curious feature of the robbery had been revealed by the discovery of the mail sack.  It was unopened, its contents undisturbed, its rusty padlock still in place.  The perpetrator of the crime had not soiled his person with any visible evidence of guilt and so was never apprehended.